NEW PALESTINE — Thieves broke into a police car parked in an officer’s driveway and stole a rifle early Wednesday, July 21.
The New Palestine officer lives lives just west of the Hancock/Marion County line in the Cumberland area, said Chief Bob Ehle of the New Palestine Police Department.
According to an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department report, a back side window of the police car was broken with a rock as the car sat in the officer’s driveway around 3 a.m. Wednesday. Two suspects were seen on surveillance video reaching inside and grabbing a bag that contained a semi-automatic patrol rifle. The suspects then fled on foot.
According to the report, IMPD officers had been dispatched earlier to another address in a nearby neighborhood after residents observed two people trying to open vehicle doors. Surveillance video showed suspects entering an unlocked vehicle that was parked in a driveway, the report said.
There were several cameras in that neighborhood as well as near the officer’s residence; police hope the recordings may help them identify the suspects.
Like many other police agencies, the New Palestine Police Department allows officers to take their vehicles home. Ehle said the department does not have a policy about bringing equipment inside, but it might have to revisit that after the incident.
“There is just no respect anymore,” Ehle said after noting his officer’s vehicle has tinted windows, making it nearly impossible to see inside.
“I think they just took a lucky guess and hit the right side where the bag was, because had they broken the other window, they wouldn’t have been able to grab anything,” Ehle said. “He had the bag tucked away, making it really hard to see and get to. It’s just unfortunate they were able to get what they got.”
While some agencies issue lockable gun racks or lock boxes to store weapons inside their patrol vehicles, others don’t due to the cost. Ehle said the officer whose gun was stolen drives an older police vehicle that didn’t have a lockable gun rack.
Officials from the Greenfield Police Department and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department declined to discuss their departments’ policies for security reasons. Capt. Chuck McMichael, deputy chief and public information officer for GPD, said the department asks its officers to be good stewards of their equipment at all times, including firearms. Their vehicles have secured areas for gun storage.
Capt. Robert Harris, public information officer for the sheriff’s department, said deputies have secured areas for gun storage in vehicles should a deputy need it.
