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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, April 1, 2002

Navy housing burglaries prompt cry for security

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

After Lt. Cmdr. Jim Doody's residence at McGrew Point was burglarized Jan. 14, the executive officer of the USS Los Angeles submarine wrote a seven-page, single-spaced letter to Navy's local housing staff outlining his concerns that property crime at McGrew Point was reaching "epidemic proportions."

Doody received no response. A month later, on March 22, the officer's home was burglarized again. That same day, another burglary and an attempted break-in took place at McGrew Point.

Doody's requests to have security increased at McGrew Point have been ignored, he said. And his letter has yet to be answered.

"After being robbed a second time, I'm at the end of my rope trying to resolve this through the housing authority," said Doody, who keeps a stack of e-mails from neighbors who have been victimized or are worried about their safety.

His wife, pediatrician Wendy Biliter, said, "The hardest thing was explaining to our 5-year-old daughter after the first burglary that bad people had done this and that it won't happen again. And then when it did, she burst into tears because she knew they'd been through her room."

At a time when the whole country is on heightened awareness and the events of Sept. 11 have brought about unprecedented national security, officers and their spouses at this off-base housing area sandwiched between Pearlridge Center and Pearl Harbor are feeling unsafe in their own homes.

The irony has not been lost on those who agree with what Doody calls "the sad irony that families in a military housing area may be at higher physical risk right now than their spouses at sea or in the field."

The main bone of contention, according to Mary Jeanne Sheehy, president of the McGrew Point Community Association, is the Navy's refusal to post a guard at the gate 24 hours a day, as is provided for on-base housing.

Off-base housing gets limited security, Sheehy said. Gate guards, if they show up at all, leave after dark. If there's an incident at McGrew's 140-home officers' complex, a guard shows up for a few days and then disappears again.

"Residents have been complaining about it, I've complained about it," she said. "And we've been told over and over and over again that we will not have a guard at our gate, we will not have any more special treatment at our housing area than any other housing that's not on a military base."

Her husband, naval flight officer Lt. Cmdr. Dondi Sheehy, is about to be deployed for six months.

Wendy Biliter, who lives with her husband Lt. Cmdr. Jim Doody and two children at McGrew Point, shows where robbers broke in through a window of their home at the Navy housing subdivision.

Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"And I'm stuck here with four kids," she said. "He has to try and make himself think that we're going to be OK, that it's not going to be that bad. He's going to have faith in the Navy to protect his family while he's gone."

Sheehy said she does not know specific crime statistics for McGrew Point this year, but is trying to get the information from the Navy. She said she was certain that in the past 15 months there had been car and home burglaries, vehicles stolen and numerous cases of theft.

She and her neighbors don't trust the oft-repeated Navy statements that McGrew is a low-crime area.

According to Honolulu Police Detective Bryan Hew, police beat 362 in Central O'ahu's District 3 — which includes McGrew Point — is indeed a low-burglary area. In fact, according to the latest published O'ahu statistics, it tied for last place of the 15 beats in District 3, with the fewest number of burglaries.

Hew had no explanation for why burglaries might be on the rise at McGrew Point, because such crimes are routinely handled by military police, he said.

Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell of the Navy's Public Affairs Office said that according to the latest Navy crime statistics, 1,203 crimes were reported in 13 Navy housing areas on O'ahu last year. Of those, 3 percent — 36 — came from McGrew Point. But there were no reported incidents of burglary, said. She had no statistics for this year.

The recent crimes at McGrew are regrettable, Campbell said, but it is the Navy's policy to treat off-base housing the same as other civilian housing, whether or not officers and their spouses live there.

"What we stress is that our Navy housing areas are very much a part of the community," Campbell said. "And that's just a fact of life. We are the victims of the same sorts of crimes that our civilian neighbors are victims of."

That's small comfort to residents such as Jean Turner, who was reluctant to discuss the subject for fear of getting her husband, a Navy commander, in hot water with the brass. She decided to speak up out of concern for her safety, and because "the Navy doesn't care."

Then she paused.

"It's hard to say that," Turner said. "You know they care — that they say they do — but then their actions speak louder than words. There are a lot of wives out here who feel the same way."

Particularly frightening, Turner said, has been the brazen attitude of the burglars, who seem to know exactly when residents are away and how long to stay. Some raid the refrigerator and even cook meals, she said.

Doody said the crooks in January were in and out of his house with around $10,000 in cameras, computers and jewelry in under 30 minutes. The second time, 10 days ago, while he and his family were away the whole morning, the thieves apparently took their time, snacking on strawberries and swilling fruit juice.

The thieves are not amateurs, they say — real pearls were taken, fake pearls tossed aside. Of particular concern to Doody and his wife is that the burglars broke into a fire safe and rifled through personal papers, even walking off with the title to their car.

"You're not sure of what they've taken," Biliter said. "It was probably a month after the first robbery before I realized they'd taken a whole box of our unused personal checks."

The break-ins bear a resemblance to a recent incident a few miles away in Salt Lake, in which four sailors living in a private basement apartment had their identities as well as their valuables lifted by a bold burglar who struck twice in one week.

The thief showed up a third time a week after that, while the sailors were at sea, but this time he was surprised by the upstairs dweller.

"I caught him trying to come in a window," said Mark Longboy, who lives in the house with his grandmother. "He was short and skinny and had an old-looking face. He had another guy waiting in a white Blazer. That's how he got away."

Doody and others at McGrew suspect the burglars are part of a ring of thieves who come in from the outside. Sometimes, though, they have their doubts.

"You hate to think that this is an inside job," said Biliter. "But I have to admit, the thought has crossed my mind."

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.