- March 28, 2024
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Residents in one Maitland condominium complex are concerned about an increasing crime trend in their community as burglary reports rise.
Police Chief Doug Ball said the Park Lake Condominiums neighborhood, located just east of the city’s border with Eatonville, has seen a spike in burglaries in the past month. Ball said there have been eight reported break-ins there in the last 30 days – 11 total since January – and one resident told the Maitland City Council on Monday that the crimes seemed to target single woman living alone in the community, specifically in end units.
“People are in fear… People are calling me asking me, ‘What we can do?’” said Park Lake resident Barbara Nelen.
“We’re doing everything we can… but we can only do so much. We don’t deserve to be sitting ducks.”
Ball said the police department hasn’t identified a specific trend of those being targeted in the community, but has increased patrols in the area, and is investigating leads into career criminals living nearby who could be to blame for the up-tick in break ins. He said most of the burglaries in the area have been committed by someone living within a mile of the community.
“I’m just getting a little scared,” said Park Lake Homeowners Association member Roxy Mize. “…I don’t like living this way.”
One suspected burglar, Ball said, was nabbed by police while trying to scale a wall on the edge of the community carrying a 50-inch television.
This year, Ball said, the Maitland Police Department has arrested 20 people in connection with burglaries in the city. Arresting those involved in burglaries takes time, he said, because as non-violent crimes they’re prioritized behind other types of crime when it comes to processing evidence in crime labs.
Ball said he has a suspect in mind who could be to blame for the ballooning crime in Park Lake, and that the police department is working on building a case against him. The young man, Ball said, lives around the corner from the neighborhood, and has been arrested 28 times for felonies and 23 times for misdemeanors – all while he was between the ages of 11 and 18. Ball wouldn’t name the man, but stated he was recently released from a yearlong stay in juvenile detention around the same time as the crime spike began. And, Ball said, the man has already been arrested by Orange County for an unrelated break-in since his release.
Ball said residents need to be on alert for suspicious activity in the neighborhoods, and secure possible vulnerabilities on their properties to keep criminals from targeting them.
“I can’t stop the burglars from coming into your home when you leave the door open, or the window open,” he said.
But Ball urged the Maitland City Council to pay attention to increasing crime trends both in the city and the Central Florida area. Burglaries, he said, are on the rise across the region – including in Maitland.
In 2014, according to the Maitland Police Department’s archived Criminal Activity Log, there were more than 300 calls for alleged burglary-related crimes in the city. But in year-end reports filed with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement records, Maitland logged 138 actual burglaries. Chief Ball said many crimes get reclassified as theft or grand theft once investigations are complete. So far this year, the log shows more than 200 calls for alleged burglary-related crimes in the city.
Despite that, Ball said, the city of Maitland is still ranked one of the top-three safest cities in Orange County. But to keep it that way, he said, the city is going to have to be willing to invest more money into the police department.
The Maitland City Council has approved four new large-scale residential developments since 2013, and Ball said the number of new residents and increased areas of patrol will have an impact on the police department’s level of service in the community. Between Maitland West, Maitland City Centre, Maitland Station and the Courtney at Lake Shadow, city records show the Council has approved nearly 1,100 apartment units in the past two years – not including the 350 more apartments planned north of Maitland Boulevard on the Battaglia property, and 81 others planned for with an expansion of Dwell Apartments near Keller Road.
Estimating an average of 2.25 residents per unit, if all of the projects are approved, the five new apartment buildings and the Dwell’s expansion could add roughly 20 percent to the city’s current population of 16,000.
“I can’t continue the response times that I think all of you want, with the same number of officers that I have,” Ball said. “So as those things come on-line I’m going to be asking for additional help.”
Meanwhile, residents in Park Lake are also asking for extra help to keep their neighborhood safe.
“It’s great to understand how to arm the Alamo,” said resident Roxy Mize, “but how do we keep the army away?”
Ball said the police department is planning a meeting with the Park Lake Homeowners Association and Neighborhood Watch group to offer advice on how the residents can better protect their neighborhood from crime.