Beware of porch pirates on what could become ‘Taking Tuesday’

LENEXA, Kan. — Lenexa Police issued a warning about porch pirates on Cyber Monday.

The day that follows is now known as Giving Tuesday to encourage philanthropy. But it’s also one of the biggest days you have to worry about thieves taking gifts and packages right off your front porch.

Millions of new doorbell and security cameras are being installed every year as deterrents to thieves.

“With the video doorbell camera today, the resolution has gotten so good the resolution the quality of the picture is a lot better,” said Bob Niekamp, Electronics Supply general manager.

They also are cheaper and offer more analytics. But are they stopping porch pirates? SafeWise 5th annual Package Theft Report release this month estimated 260 million packages stolen last year, a 23% increase.

It happened in a Northland neighborhood off Old Tiffany Springs this weekend to multiple Black Friday shoppers.

“Sure enough there’s a lady running up to our steps and decides to grab all of our packages and away she went,” Jordan Perriman said.

And in the same local Facebook group Stolen KC, where that video was shared, Perriman has seen video of thieves stealing the entire doorbell camera.

“I have no words for that, the fact that someone has the nerve to rip a doorbell camera out.”

Electronics Supply sells various doorbell and security cameras, some are more difficult to disassemble or destroy than others. Niekamp recommends putting cameras out of easy reach if possible.

“The camera may be mounted further away but you can still zoom in and recognize the face. On a video doorbell, not so much because its right there in front of you,” he said.

Whether they’re just stealing packages or the cameras too, there will still be video with doorbell cameras cloud storage.

It may not be the crime deterrent you might expect to masked bandits but can be easily shared showing identifying characteristics like this most recent woman seen hauling off packages wearing a PINK brand hoodie and leaving in a blue vehicle.

“As long as we can work together and try to stop it, these videos are going to do something for us, stopping someone is enough to pay for itself,” Perriman said.

Lenexa Police said sign up for delivery notifications, so you know exactly when your package has been delivered.

Take packages inside as soon as you can, or have a trusted neighbor pick them up from your porch. Finally, have packages delivered to your work or consider in store pick-up.