A loudmouthed guest in our home was among those who recognized something was amiss on Westview Circle last Monday.
Her name is C.J., and she is our son John’s goldendoodle. She is lovable but selfish, the way some dogs can leave their imprint on both sides of an emotional coin.
When I get home from work, she demands comically that I take her to the back yard so she can chase down a ball. In the next minute, she is trying to intimidate our two border collies in their own home with subtle growls.
John and C.J. have been living with us since the end of January, and John has been gone for the past three weeks at a pilot-training program in Ohio. So C.J. is lonely.
Somewhat amusingly, John’s departure has left Mary Ann in charge of feeding C.J. She is not a dog person, but she has been a trooper about it. She’s a good mama.
She even buys C.J. the ridiculously expensive food that John insists on using, in spite of his current “income-deprived” lifestyle.
Anyway, C.J. likes to spend some of her time sitting at a front window of our house, watching the world go by and probably lamenting the fact that John left her in a cultural hellhole with two other dogs.
Until Monday, when she saw something unusual and made a lot of noise about it: Two kids walking slowly around the circle.
C.J. would have barked at anyone who came along. But pedestrians are rare on Westview Circle, almost exclusively limited to somebody getting their daily exercise.
C.J.’s barking got the attention of Mary Ann, who came to the window to see what was going on. Neither she nor the dog could have known that the neighborhood apparently was being cased to see if any houses were vulnerable.
It turned out that two homes got broken into, including one where a family had just moved in a few weeks ago. In the other, a longtime resident came home from a meeting to find two kids inside.
At least one suspect has been caught. The police did a good job, even recovering some things that were stolen.
I write all this, intentionally with more attention on C.J. than necessary, to say that there is only one reason these burglaries got into the newspaper. It’s because this was a “My Fair Lady” case — they occurred “On the Street Where You Live,” as one of my favorite songs from that musical is titled.
Mary Ann texted me that there had been a burglary, and managing editor Matt Williamson heard a call on the police scanner that sent officers to Westview Circle.
We had a story in Wednesday’s paper. I can report that it’s a lot easier to get crime victims to talk about what happened when they know you.
The larger point is this: More than a year ago, I got an email from a friend who noted that our crime reporting has declined. There is no disputing this. As our revenue has decreased, so has our news staff.
We get the big stories, like when someone is shot or killed, but we miss the smaller felony crimes like house burglaries, which used to be listed regularly in the paper and are a good measurement of what’s going on around us.
There are some Facebook pages that do a better job of reporting crime than we do. I know how we can catch up, but I underestimated how much some employee turnover last year would leave less time to begin new projects.
In a December 2023 column, I noted that Section 25-61-12 of the Mississippi Code says a law enforcement incident report is a public record. I talked to Sheriff Wally Jones after he took office and he agreed we could review their reports. The problem is, I never got down to his office to do it.
So, hopefully to push myself a little harder, I promise publicly to contact the sheriff again and set up a system where our staff can review the incident reports two or three times a week. This will deliver a more comprehensive crime report in the paper and the website.
Once I get things going with the sheriff’s department, then I will talk to McComb police about doing the same thing. Maybe Summit and Magnolia, too.
Two topics really get attention for the Enterprise-Journal: local sports and local crime. People want to know about both. We’re doing very well on the sports. Now I’ve got to step it up on crime.
