Helpful Crime Prevention Primer

When property owners suffer property crime, what do they normally do? Call the police? Not Chris Peterson. Chris apparently calls the Standard-Examiner.

It appears our new Malan's Basin community benefactor is having vandalism problems again, according to Sunday's John Wright story. It seems a week doesn't go by without some danged trespasser vandalizing the expensive and valuable equipment:

There have been three incidents of theft and/or vandalism involving equipment being used to clear vegetation to facilitate planning of the resort, said owner Chris Peterson via e-mail Friday. The resort is planned to be built on 1,440 acres he owns in and around Malan’s Basin.

In the most recent incident, someone hiked more than a mile onto Peterson’s property last week and used heavy rocks to smash $3,600 worth of equipment, he said.

My first question, upon reading John Wright's Sunday story: "Why is Mr. Peterson leaving valuable and vulnerable property out in the open in the first place, especially after earlier acts of vandalism and theft?"

Being the curious type, I phoned the Weber County Sheriff's department yesterday, to obtain a little more information on this serial vandalism story. I spoke with Lt. Jeff Malan, who is familiar with the facts of the case. The vandalized "equipment" in question, it turns out, is portable tree and brush removal equipment, chainsaws and the like. Despite the winter snowpack, Mr. Peterson still has crews working on the Malan's Basin slopes. Rather than packing this portable equipment in and out each day, they've been leaving the equipment out in the open -- "chaining" it together, "hidden" under a tarp. Until now, Mr. Peterson's crews have continued this pattern of behavior, and have thus repeatedly suffered acts of theft and vandalism.

I asked Lt. Malan what security measures an owner of "remote" property such as Mr. Peterson ought to take, to avoid criminal acts of this kind.

He told me it's no different in the back-country than in the city. If you value your property, you don't just leave it lying around. The best approach, he said, is to pack it in and out daily. Second best is to lock it up in a secure place. "If you leave valuable equipment out in the open, it WILL be stolen or vandalized," he said. The problem is aggravated, of course, when property owners keep their properties open to the public as Chris has so graciously done, he added.

I have some experience in this realm, being part-owner of fair-sized outlying ranch spread in Eastern Weber County. The ranch has been family-owned for almost eighty years. And there are a few ancient and hard-learned country propositions I'd like to pass on to our friend, Chris.

• Even "No trespassing signs" are of limited utility when posted on out-back properties. Most people are law-abiding and honorable, but there's a select element of the population who ignore them entirely, especially when posted on properties that are off the beaten track.
  
  
• A property's seeming "remoteness" offers only a false sense of security. You'd be amazed at the number of people who wander around in the back country, whether open to the public or not.
  
  
• Even a highly competent and professional law enforcement agency like the Weber County Sheriff's Department can't patrol or investigate a crime on your property, if it's snowed-in and inaccessable by vehicle. Even an emergency response can take hours; so it's best to protect yourself. Malicious trespassers have some perception of this.
  
  
• If you can't remove your valuable equipment from your property entirely, it should be secured in a locked steel out-building.
  
  
• Employment of full-time caretaker is probably the most effective old-fashioned precaution.
  
  
• The typical out-back vandalism incident is a "crime of opportunity," Rather than one directed at an individal property owner. An act of vandalism on an out-of-the-way property is thus most likely a purely random act.

This latter point of course raises another entirely different question -- whether the Standard-Examimer's reporting of this story constitutes responsible journalism.

We don't get even two paragraphs into the story before the Standard-Examiner begins with the innuendo and finger-pointing.

It’s no secret there are those who don’t like the idea of a year-round resort in Malan’s Basin and a gondola connecting it to Ogden’s east bench.

But in the last several weeks, opposition to the proposal may have risen — or sunk, as it were — to a new level.

The Std-Ex even went so far as to have contacted contact local Sierra Club president Dan Schroeder, who, naturally, labelled the vandalism "deplorable."

I think it's a bit early to get into the finger-pointing and labeling. And from the perspective of securing Mr. Peterson's vulnerable equipment, I think Mr. Peterson may be a little bit tardy.

And having been a part-owner of a tree-service company for several years myself, I'll note that I recognize it's a major pain in the rear to haul light but unwieldy tree removal equipment in and out of a remote job site. Nevertheless, it's a practical necessity.

Get smart, I say, Chris. Haul your light equipment out at the end of the day, or lock it up in a sturdy steel box. I'm tired, frankly, of hearing the whining. It's not that I lack empathy. I'd love to see these criminals caught in the act. It's just that it's hard to muster much sympathy for somebody who utterly fails to look after himself.

And what say our gentle readers, if anything, about this matter?