While communities across the midstate are warming up for Tuesday's National Night Out Against Crime, burglars said they were poised to step up their efforts that night, as well.
"While people are sitting on their front porches with their lights on in an attempt to 'send a message' to us, we'll be quietly slipping in through the back door and robbing them blind," said a veteran Harrisburg burglar who calls himself 'Hellboy.' "It's even better when they go out to one of those community events at a park, because then we're pretty much guaranteed to have the whole place to ourselves. Dumbasses."
Police acknowledge their efforts on National Night Out are focused on community outreach and not on patrols. "It's a chance for us to take a break from chasing bad guys for a night and not actually have to do any hard work," said Susquehanna Township Police Chief Robert Martin. He said his department plans to hold an event that will feature, among other activities, a public demonstration on how tasers work, using homeless men rounded up from nearby Harrisburg earlier in the day as targets.
York Police Commissioner Mark Whitman said his department will have costume characters on-hand offering free samples of certain street drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. "That's mostly for adults, though, as we'll steer children toward samples of the less-addictive substances, like marijuana," Whitman said.
Meantime, Camp Hill Borough Police plan to offer free child fingerprinting kits and a demonstration entitled "How Racial Profiling Makes Our Community Better."
