Vandalised Windows E-Mail

Thank you for your e-mail. I’m aware that when you took the crime report on Friday morning, I was still upset from the events of Thursday evening and was not making a lot of sense. So I thought I’d summarise the facts, especially since whoever it was took another couple of shots at my house on Friday afternoon (15th) around 16:30, when I made another emergency call (CADXXXX15112019). Two officers visited me at 17:30, looked around and seemed surprised at what they saw.

The earliest date I am sure my house was attacked was Wednesday 6th November when a number of ball-bearings were shot at my house around 22:00, one breaking a window in my back room. (Backroom_20191106 attached). For various reasons (I leave for work when it’s dark, and get back when it’s dark) I simply didn’t notice this until the week of the 11th.

There were at least two more incidents of what I thought was pebble-throwing in the next few days, both in the late evening. I was wrong to think these were pebbles.

On Thursday evening 14th around 22:30 someone shot a number of metal ball-bearings at the back of my house. One came through the kitchen window, leaving a neat round hole and scattering small glass fragments the length of the kitchen. This was followed by two closely spaced shots which broke the glass of a window in my back room.

At that moment I felt I was under attack. One pellet against a wall is a prank, two in quick succession through the same window is malice.

I made the first call to 999 immediately after that. (CADXXXX14112019.)

I recovered two ball-bearings while cleaning up the next morning. The officers who visited on Friday evening (15th) found seven more ball bearings (Ballbearings.jpg) near the back of my house: these must have bounced off the wall. I still have two more to find inside the house.

I discussed two possibilities with the officers on Friday. The first that it’s someone on Camrose Avenue shooting from a window. Second, it’s someone shooting from the back alley. Taking a look along my back alley, all the other houses on Elmgate Avenue have higher fences or trees blocking the line-of-sight. So my house looks like a target of opportunity.

The first could be dealt with by a friendly enquiry from the most likely houses. No allegations need to be made, and it would eliminate the possibility. Your colleagues suggested that the Safer Neighbourhoods Team might take this on.

I will be drawing my curtains and taking a couple of other simple measures for a while. Your colleagues said I should call if there were any more attacks on my home.

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So there's something that's been going on and gave me some bad nights' sleep at the end of my week off. I'm waiting for the insurance assessors to visit. I decided that in the chaotic lives of teenagers who shoot ball bearings at houses in the evening, and will soon be spending months in Young Offenders Institutions, that a house with no lights on at 22:00 must be empty, since it's owner must be out, probably at the pub. The idea that it is occupied by a hard-working man who wakes up early is so far out of their experience that they wouldn't even know what the words mean. Hence leaving the lights on. With the curtains drawn. Because if the lights are on, and they can't see anyone moving around (when I sit on the couch, my head is out of sight), they will assume that I am out, or possibly passed out in a drunken stupor like their parents. As you can tell, I wish whoever it is nothing but the best for their lives.