By Christian Coelho (11)

At a meeting to discuss a recent crime pattern in the area, Fresno County Sherrif Margaret Mimms addresses the Easton community at KC Donut Shop on Monday, January 11.

The Easton community was the victim of six residential burglaries that stretched from December 30th to January 3rd. The suspects involved in the burglaries were described as three black males in their mid 20’s driving a 1990 Mitsubishi pickup with a white camper shell by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

The suspects targeted houses where it appeared no one was home and confirmed this by repeatedly ringing the doorbell or knocking. If no one answered, they kicked the door down and entered the residence and looted anything of value.

Freshmen Drake Salwasser and his family were a victim of an attempted residential burglary during this time period.

“We have a big front window in our house and underneath it we had a hose with a squirt nozzle, it looked like they were squirting water and maybe filling up their radiator, then they were swinging it around hit the window breaking one of the panes, then the alarm went off and they left,” said Salwasser.

The last burglary that occurred was located on the 6000 block of South Walnut and resulted in shots being fired on the suspects by the homeowner causing the suspects to flee the premises.

“Obviously somebody has driven around this area and chosen locations.They’re looking for crimes of opportunity and that’s why they are going up to doors and knocking to see if there’s anybody home.  I don’t know why this specific area [was targeted], but hopefully because of the things that have happened they’re gone, hopefully their not gonna go somewhere else, but they’ve stopped so far committing the crimes here,” Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said.

The Fresno County Neighborhood Watch Association and the Sherifff’s department held two meetings at KC Donut Shop, the first was Saturday, January 9th and the second was on Monday, January 11th.

At the January 11th meeting, approximately   150 community members attended and many were forced to stand outside.  At this meeting, Sheriff Mims attended and helped answer community member’s questions and praised Easton for acting like a community.

“We’ve had six burglaries, residential burglaries here in this area, and the community is concerned and we called this meeting tonight and they showed up.  They showed up in great numbers and I’m very proud of Easton.  The information we gave them tonight was facts on the crimes, information on how they can harden the target, becoming involved in neighborhood watch and mark their property and be good witnesses for us,” Mims said.

Mims continued to complimenting the crowd saying “The citizens here tonight were very responsive and receptive, I think they’re going to rally around their community and I’m very proud of them.”

Anyone who has any information in regards to the Easton Crime pattern are asked to call Detective Mike Quintanilla at the Area 3 Sheriff’s Department at 896-2003.

“All it’s gonna take is the one piece of evidence to wrap this all up, the single fingerprint, the single shoe track, a tire track. That’s what we’re looking for to match it up with suspects that we can arrest in these cases.” Mims said.