FRONT PORCH JUSTICE
OKC man uses fake packages to catch thieves on camera
In one northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood, a man’s quest for front porch justice began with a pirate costume and medication.
It was a few years ago when John Karlin received notification that the items had been delivered to his house, just off Pennsylvania Avenue in a quaint neighborhood between Nic’s Grill and Raising Cane’s.
The pirate costume was for his son, just before Halloween. Despite notification of delivery, the costume and medication were missing.
Karlin figured he’d been victimized by thieves. He installed a camera, set a fake package
on the porch and about a week later, about 10 in the morning, recorded a bandit nabbing a box full of nuts, bolts and sticks.
“It’s become the neighborhood sport,” Karlin said.
Unlike some cranky vigilante with a shotgun in his left hand and a right fist of fury, Karlin is an unassuming 40-year-old husband and father, an Army veteran who sits calmly at a kitchen table topped with toy soldiers and talks casually about catching 18 thieves on camera over the past couple of years.
Commonly called “porch pirates,” they’ve unwittingly stolen boxes full of bottle caps. An old shoe. Dog poop. They’ve run away with sleigh bells jingling in tow. Karlin likes to attach the bells to fishing line, then affix the line to a box and watch the hilarity ensue.
There was the woman caught on video taking a smoke break on his porch before stealing a box. Karlin had attached a cow bell to it. When the bell rang, the woman stopped, set the package back on the porch and walked away. One bandit ran off with the cowbell clanging behind him.
Another man tried to swipe a chain saw, not knowing it was broken and cabled to the porch. The raider returned about five minutes later. With bolt cutters.
One woman purloined a package with a dead squirrel inside. Karlin said she was driving a stolen car and was part of a stolen credit card ring. The woman and others were arrested.
“Once you bust somebody, and find out they’ve got this long criminal history, it’s satisfying,” Karlin said. “Like hey, I did something.”
Furry Jacket Package Thieves
Roughly 23 million adult Americans have had packages stolen from their homes, according to a 2015 study commissioned by insuranceQuotes.com.
Porch pirates make regular appearances on the Oklahoma City Police Department’s Facebook page, as officers seek the public’s help in arresting them.
“Obviously during the holiday season, it does pick up,” police spokesman Capt. Bo Mathews said. “People are getting things sent through the mail. Whenever we get video of this going on, the detectives hopefully will take it to our Crime Stoppers and we’ll post it on our website.”
In Norman, the police department posted on Facebook some tips to keep packages away from bandits:
Residents should track their deliveries online and request a signature confirmation of the delivery. Or, ask a neighbor to watch for the delivery, and provide instructions for packages to be left out of sight. If possible, have the packages delivered to your work.
On a recent Saturday night, the so-called “Furry Jacket Package Thieves” stole from a couple living near the Plaza Arts District.
The husband, who asked not to be named when interviewed by phone, said he and his wife were decorating their Christmas tree at 8:30 p.m. when an app on his phone alerted him to a security camera capturing movement on the front porch.
The Furry Jacket Package Thieves, who appear to be two women wearing jackets with fur-lined collars, were seen snooping around the porch. They got away with a garden hose and a sprinkler.
The hose and sprinkler were later dumped on the front yard. The couple routinely has packages shipped to a relative who is home during the day, or else to authorized retailer drop-off locations.
“It’s kind of a lead-in crime,” the husband said. “If you make it easy, it pulls criminals to your house. We’ve had one package taken and that’s what prompted us to stop sending stuff to the house.”
‘No sense to it’
About 5 a.m. the morning after the Furry Jacket Package thieves struck, Karlin caught on camera a man walking past his house, stopping to look at a fake package on his porch, then return as a passenger in a white vehicle.
The man walked onto Karlin’s porch, looked at the package, texted someone, then walked off.
“There’s no sense to it, why these guys think there would be a package you could steal at five o’clock on Sunday morning,” Karlin said. “For me, it’s become a game now, trying to deter the thieves and kick them out of the community. I know some of them live around here.”
The game has cost roughly $500 in cameras, monitors and other equipment. Karlin says it helps him sleep better at night. He backs up his video, logs incident times and shares porch pirate descriptions with his neighbors and online.
He keeps police reports in case the thieves pop up elsewhere and he can help detectives.
Some neighbors support the effort. But Karlin also has heard from others who think he is luring a criminal element by baiting them with fake packages.
“It’s not like I put crime scent on these materials to attract these criminals,” he said.