Don’t know about you, but I’m getting far too many neighborhood group e-mails about smash-and-dash burglaries (even in homes with security systems) and worse.

This morning, for example, I got a note about a recent break-in in Briarwood in which a burglar nearly clubbed a dog to death with a shovel. And then I got an LRPD report of a home intrusion in the 5800 block of Lee about 2 a.m. today. The occupant awoke to find a man standing by his bed with a semi-automatic handgun. He wanted money. Told there was none, he searched the house fruitlessly then left, but not before pulling out a window unit air conditioner.

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UPDATE: On the Briarwood burglary. It was at the home of Graham Rich, relatively new CEO of Central Arkansas Water, and occurred while he and his wife were away last Monday night. He says that the injury report on his 14-year-old rescue dog, Jessie, was exaggerated. He believes she was clubbed with a shovel found in the yard because she emerged limping from beneath a storage shed, a place she normally never goes, when the Riches returned home. “She’s going to be OK,” Rich said of the chow mix, which will bark at unfamiliar arrivals, but doesn’t bite. The burglar smashed the front door and stole a laptop, but otherwise left the house undisturbed.

Rich said he’d become too complacent about his good neighborhood, where neighbors tend to look out for each other and life has been peaceful since he arrived. He’d left the front storm door unlocked and left no lights on when he left. “People just need to be a little smarter than what we were,” he said. He’s buying a timer to turn lights on and off and will be securing locks in the future.

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