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Saturday, July 30, 2016

Robbery


Friday, July 29, 2016


Robbery

Before I continue with this post, I want to stress that robberies happen everywhere around the world - in big cities and in small, in occupied and unoccupied homes, and elsewhere.

We are hardly going to leave our adopted town and country to move elsewhere because of this one robbery.

About two weeks ago, a spate of home robberies started in our neighborhood of Vista Atenas. We were the second house to be hit and we lost my cell phone, my camera and my iPad and Lance's computer.

It happened, we dealt with it and we move on. Thanks to our good friends and neighbors, we have the use of borrowed computers for the time being. I have replaced my cell phone and we'll be doing the same with our other electronics.

What I want to focus on here is our interaction with the Atenas police and the Costa Rican judicial system. The police arrived at our house within ten minutes of our call to them. We were told to file a report with the OIJ (Organismo de Investigacion Judicial) the very next day. A report (denuncia) needs to be filed with them before they can start an investigation, enter your property, take fingerprints, etc.

My interview with the OIJ was very positive. I had a translator with me (thank you so much, neighbor Margarita). I have a copy of our denuncia with all details, including serial numbers of computers, etc. The OIJ people are very professional and took us seriously.

The OIJ team were then able to arrive at our house that same day and dusted for fingerprints and took photos of the point of entry into our house. I had to have my fingerprints taken the next day to distinguish mine from the perp's.

Our community has banded together to deal with our present crime problem. We have met with the mayor of Atenas, the chief of police, the head of OIJ and have come up with workable community solutions.

Not to say the problem has been completely solved ... but at least we are working together and we are a tight knit community.