Owners reclaim stolen possessions

Last week the Police Department conducted an operation in which they recovered numerous items such as TV’s and stereos, believed to be stolen during Hurricane Keith. While some people may have denied holding stolen items in their homes, police say that the true owners are coming forward to claim their possessions.

Fitzroy Yearwood, Acting Press Officer, Police Department

“What happened is within last week and this week, is that twenty-one individuals have come forward with rightful proof of ownership and documents. Their belongings have been handed over to them, so far it’s moving rather smoothly. We have arrested and charged eight people in connection with these items, for handling stolen goods and other violations. With the bicycle program, we have about eight or nine different bicycles that were brought in for different offences. What we are trying to do is that we are still encouraging the public to come in with rightful proof of ownership. Just come in anytime eight to five Monday through Friday because our job is to find owners… We are trying to find the real owners of these things. I know some people might be upset, but if you can’t prove you own something legally then we have to presume that you got it illegally.”

Jose Sanchez

“In the cases that the home you got to and retrieve items, was there any indication that these homes might contain stolen items?”

Fitzroy Yearwood

“Exactly, like I said, we did surveillance for a week or two on these homes. For various reasons we suspected that these homes had stolen items in them and we struck, and yes we found things in them. We have them upstairs, and what we don’t have upstairs we returned to the rightful owners already.”

The police are still inviting anyone whose homes had been burglarized to visit the station to identify their belongings.