In December 2007, a group of men began targeting elderly persons to become victims of crime in the City of Hammond and throughout Northwest Indiana. The men are being described as white or Hispanic and are pretending to be workers from the Water Department, NIPSCO, tree cutting services, etc. In some cases these men have worn vests and hardhats and used walkie-talkie radios to communicate with each other. Their method of operation is that one of the men comes to the door and tries to take you to a room or basement while the other men enter an unlocked door and search your house for valuables like money or jewelry. BEWARE - It is also possible that there are suspects who are working alone in a copycat type crime pattern.?

The Hammond Police Department is asking that if someone comes to your door you do not know or are not expecting, call the Police Department immediately (911) and DO NOT let them into your home. When the police get there, we will check the person out and make sure he is legitimate. We would rather be called on a false alarm than not be called and miss out on an opportunity to catch these men.?

Anyone with information on these types of crimes should call Lt. Mike Daniels 852-2961 or Sgt. Steve Guernsey 852-2978.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.