Even with technological advances in crime scene investigations, better interdepartmental communication and cooperation, and increasing visibility of law enforcement with 24-hour patrols, Maine is still strife with burglaries, specifically those committed by perpetrators with a drug dependency. And the Lakes Region is no exception.
“I hate to say it, but at least I have job security,” said Detective Dan Down of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, who is assigned to the Standish area.
Down, in cooperation with the Buxton Police Department and other detectives from the Sheriff’s office, helped arrest two Standish residents and Bonny Eagle High School students, Andrew Legere and Derek Bean, both 18 years old, for a string of 19 burglaries in five area towns last month.
The Sheriff’s department also has two other suspects believed to be involved in those burglaries, who have yet to be arrested, one of which was a minor during the time the crimes were committed.
Cumberland County Detective Don Goulet said the two students arrested in connection with the Buxton burglaries had admitted to marijuana use as their reason for committing the string of burglaries.
According to Down, a “very large majority” of cases involving burglaries in the Lakes Region, and in the state, are perpetrated by drug addicts.
“One of the first questions I ask a victim is if he or she has checked their medicine cabinets to see if any medication was taken, and a lot of times they realize that in fact, it was,” he said.
The abuses of the prescription pain medication OxyContin and heroin have become an epidemic, according to state and local law enforcement officials.
Perpetrators will often hock stolen goods for cash to support their habit, and hardly ever steal for the sake of money, he said.
“Our inside information comes as a result of when we catch these people and they cooperate. Most of those who commit burglaries are telling us that it’s to support their habit,” Goulet said.
“If you have a drug habit, you first steal from yourself… selling your TV or VCR, then you start stealing from your own family, and finally you steal from complete strangers,” he said.
Police officials warn that OxyContin is highly addictive and easily available.
The victims
Tuan Nguyen, owner of the Mad Monkey CafA?© in Raymond, was recently the victim of a burglary in his Casco residence. He returned home to find his door kicked in and valuables, such as his wife’s jewelry, two digital cameras, a laptop and more than 120 CDs, stolen.
“What angers me and my wife the most is that we work hard. I worked for five years to get my wife through college. We made some good financial decisions and then all of a sudden you get ripped off,” Nguyen said.
No arrests have been made yet in connection with the case, and Nguyen said he has since been affected by the paranoia that it may happen again.
“I’ll drive to work and pass four guys in a Pinto, and I’ll turn right around to make sure everything is all right at home,” he said.
Nguyen is also having difficulty getting full compensation from his insurance company, and recommends that people get in the habit of photographing their valuables for insurance purposes.
At the request of police, local pharmacies, which are common targets for addicts because of their stocks of prescription drugs, have taken new security measures, such as double checking for fraudulent prescription fills and limiting their supplies of OxyContin.
Rite Aid Pharmacy in Naples, for example, no longer sells OxyContin at all as a result of a recent robbery, one of their pharmacists said.
Last year, Darell Twitty, 36, of Buxton, was arrested and charged for the robbery of the Bridgton Rite Aid and burglarizing a residence in Windham, and for possessing a street value of $42,000 worth of OxyContin.
“The problem is that the Lakes Region is wide open,” said Down, who, just in the month of May, investigated 14 burglaries in Standish alone.
Prevention, treatment
Kim Johnson, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, said there has been a dramatic increase in abuse with and dependency on prescription drugs with 18 to 25 year olds, who are most likely to commit these crimes.
“There’s not a simple way to target this group… they’re out of school and there aren’t a lot of workplace programs,” she said.
Johnson pointed out that there are a lot of prevention programs for alcohol abuse, but few are directed toward prescription drug abuse and dependency, the medical criteria for which this group most often meets.
“All prevention is aimed at adolescents, but we’re seeing this 18 to 25 age group, and they’re growing,” she said.
According to the Office of Substance Abuse, prescription drug abuse and dependency within this age group has jumped from 5.9 percent in 2000 to 10.4 percent in 2004.
“The move from use to abuse is happening much more rapidly now,” Johnson claimed.
Although targeting alcohol is “targeting everything else,” according to Johnson, because alcohol is considered the gateway to other dependencies and abuses, most programs are directed toward adolescents, not young adults.
“We have multiple studies going on right now” to determine the best course of action, she said.
Police actions
Police efforts to stem the growing problem of drug abuse and theft have succeeded in several ways, Down said. Visibility and communication, for example, are aspects of police work that have a direct impact on local criminality.
“We try to be in plain view as much as possible. The more people see us the less chance there is of crime,” he said.
Down also points out that “communicating is huge” between forces.
For example, while investigating a string of burglaries, Down and other officers executed a search warrant at a suspect’s home, and found stolen items involved in a separate case being investigated by state police. As a result, multiple cases were solved through interdepartmental communication, Down said.
In addition, sometimes the perpetrator will hold on to items that are specific enough to be identified, according to police officials, like coinage or names etched onto valuables, which lends itself to an easier prosecution.
“One would like to think we’re being proactive instead of reactive… I’d like to think we’re making it more difficult for burglars,” Down said.
For those who need counseling on substance addiction and abuse, there are available services in the area, including DANZIG Counseling Services in Windham, which can be reached at 893-0000.
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