More Burglary Details Emerge As Neighbors Pitch In With Post-Break In Cleanup...

Photos, blog post by John Hoff

I wonder if they teach the clean up song in juvenile detention? The lyrics are fairly simple, as any parent of a toddler knows...

Clean up, clean up, everybody let's clean up
Clean up, clean up, put your things away

I don't know if the six juveniles arrested in a Thanksgiving burglary on Hillside Ave. N. ever had parents who sang them the "clean up" song or taught them appropriate social skills. They do, however, have quite an opportunity to learn a few things in juvenile detention. Word is they will most likely remain locked up until Monday because it's a holiday weekend. Word is some of the parents arrived at juvie and were unable to spring their children from detention.

It's going to be a long holiday weekend for those parents. Are they contemplating where, in the raising of their offspring, they've gone drastically wrong? Or are they just grinding their teeth in rage about how, supposedly, the system has wronged them and their incarcerated younguns, caught red-handed in the very act of burglarizing a house?

Meanwhile...

...neighbors, including this blogger, pitched in to help with the post-burglary cleanup (cleanup, cleanup, put your things away) and additional details emerged about Thursday's dramatic apprehension of six juveniles.

Additional detail number one: a landscape brick was involved in breaking into the house. Apparently, when "Mr. Neighbor" witnessed one of the juveniles kicking in the window on the back door, that was "act two" of the break in. A landscaping brick had already been involved, but it only punched a hole through the two windows and more kicking was needed to make the hole large enough to permit entry.

Once inside the house, one of the burglars went into the bathroom and took a dump. He didn't flush. And then he tossed a whole roll of toilet paper into the commode. Hopefully the lab rats who dusted the house down for fingerprints can also match the turd to its owner. If I had to take a guess I would go with this guy, pictured below, since his pants aren't pulled all the way up.

Contributed photo

Inside the house, suspects pulled the handles off a little cabinet that was locked and was full of CDs. It should be noted the CDs in the house were hardly the kind of albums the young men were likely to enjoy listening to; lots of classic music and hits from eras decades before they were born. Not a gangster rap song in the whole house.

The elderly owner of the house said her medication was rifled; however, it appears nothing was taken.

In fact the burglary was such a failure, such a comic farce it has actually inspired a song to be written by this blogger called Charlatan of Larceny. The tune is about a teenager who leads six younger boys on a burglary spree pretending to have criminal expertise. So far me and my guitar playing friend have only done one take of the song, but after participating in the post-burglary cleanup, (cleanup, cleanup) I realized I needed to add a few more verses, as follows:

When you find medication used for curing ills
The best thing to steal is the liver pills

In retelling the tale of the burglary and how neighbors dramatically intervened (and believe me, the tale is being told over and over) something jumped out of the story. Why did one of the young burglars open the front door and start to walk outside after breaking in from the back? Was he opening the door for somebody expected to arrive? Like maybe an adult with a car to make off with the loot? I wonder if the police got any good evidence from cell phones about who the burglars called and when? Neighbors are speculating, repeatedly, that adults might have been involved in what the juveniles were doing and it would be really good to find out who these adults (if they were involved) might be.

Also, this blogger gave a lot of credit to two neighbors who trapped the burglars inside long enough for police to arrive. Well, it turns out the police gave neighbors the exact same credit. One officer, identified as "Rocco," told citizens gathered at the scene something like this:

Usually when I arrive, I'm a minute too late. That minute where the suspects were trapped inside the house made all the difference.

More details also emerged about the self-described "stepfather" who arrived on the scene about forty-five minutes after the apprehension of the suspects.

Reportedly, he tried to tell police to let at least one of the boys go free.

"He was with me," the man pleaded.

The neighbor I described as Mr. Burly later expressed this thought in response to that assertion:

Not unless you were coming out of the house with him, Mister.

Below is a picture of the window one of the suspects used to escape. The screen has been replaced and, luckily, the window was not broken.

Police officers at the scene told the stepdad to "move along." As the man moved along, Mr. Burly said, sarcastically, "Hey, where's everybody going? It's THANKSGIVING."

"HEY!" the stepdad reportedly yelled back. "We keep to ourselves."

"You keep to yourselves?" Mr. Burly retorted. "Then why are your kids in squad cars?"

Police stayed between the two men and, again, urged the stepdad to move along. The stepdad stormed off, trailed by a posse of about five kids. He is probably no closer to freeing his children today than he was two days ago.

Meanwhile, much of the cleanup at the elderly neighbor's house focused on sweeping up glass. Little cube shaped pieces of it were everywhere and, in fact, a teapot of water had to be heated up to melt ice on the back steps just to get rid of all the glass mixed with ice. (See photo at top of the blog of sweeping away glass) The bottoms of two paper bags were filled with glass. In the photo below, part of the doorframe is visible, too, and some empty plastic cups that were tossed in the bag with the broken glass.

Here is the interior of a shop vacuum, the bottom full of glass.

Below is a picture of fingerprints on the door, highlighted with forensic fingerprint powder. You can see the broken glass edge and the wood that has been used to replace the window of the door.

This is what it looks like when you come home and your backdoor window has been replaced with a board, courtesy of the Minneapolis Fire Department. Reportedly, when the elderly neighbor came home two of her neighbors were waiting outside, City Council Member Don Samuels and the guy I call "Mr. Burly."

"How was your Thanksgiving?" the neighbor asked, unaware her house was broken into.

"A lot better than yours," Mr. Burly answered.

At first, the neighbor thought it was some kind of joke. Unfortunately, it wasn't. But knowing the suspects had been apprehended (all but one) and realizing nothing of great value had been taken made the whole incident less traumatic. The neighbor found her jewelry box on the floor, dumped out. Maybe some pieces were missing. It was hard to tell. But none of the stuff was very valuable anyway, except in terms of sentimental value.

And in an odd sort of way, the burglary brought a blessing to the neighbor I call Mr. Burly. He'd been planning for Thanksgiving with some relatives but at the last minute the relatives were sick. So it was kind of turning into a lame Thanksgiving, but then the burglary happened and Mr. Burly realized it was his destiny all along to stay nearby and be part of the action.

"This saved my whole Thanksgiving," Mr. Burly told the neighbor.

As strange as it sounds, this burglary represents progress. A couple years ago, I was involved in cleaning up after another holiday burglary, click here for article. In that instance, the burglars got away and took stuff including a child's piggy bank. So now it's a couple years later and burglars try the same trick, but they get apprehended.

Progress.

One odd moment about the burglary sticks out in the mind of the witnesses. When the burglars started pouring out of the house, the neighbors froze for a moment. They were shocked. The burglars were so young. The burglars were only children.

Naturally, this blog would like to know "where were the parents" while this was happening, but here's the piece of information I really want:

WHO were the parents? What were their names and where do they live?