Ellen Spence of Corpus Christi considers herself a good neighbor.
“I’m a good neighbor, and I care of other people,” she said.
She does that by taking deliveries on the doorsteps of her neighbors who aren’t home and bringing them to her house for safekeeping.
“When I know they’re home, they text me or call me, and I run their stuff to their house,” Spence said.
That’s a good plan according to Sgt. Travis Pace of the Corpus Christi Police Department who says he sees a lot of so-called “porch pirates” during the holidays.
“Nowadays, people take it upon themselves to take from you what you worked hard for,” Sgt. Pace said.
He urges anyone with security camera or doorbell video of porch pirates in action to bring it to the police department before posting it on social media.
“We usually get it a day or two down the road,” he said. “You need to get ahold of us as soon as possible, have the video ready for us, and we’ll take that and do what we can to get it out there.”
Sgt. Pace has several recommendations for protecting your deliveries. He says the best protection is to have deliveries made to your place of business. If that’s not possible, arrange with the delivery company what time the delivery will be made, and be sure to be home when it happens. Finally, do what Spence does, and ask a neighbor to take and hold your packages.
“I don’t want people to take people’s Christmas stuff or anything off their porch,” Spence said.
