Often, police just aren't coming

    Vandals splashed motor oil on the family's driveway, spray-painted obscenities on the walls, covered their garage door with fake gang symbols, broke out lights and smashed a 7-year-old girl's bedroom window.

    The March 26 incident caused $20,000 worth of damage to a home in the 9900 block of Pinedale Drive and shocked the Pine Creek neighborhood. But, according to Lenea Thomas, it didn't get much attention from police.

    For a week, Thomas couldn't persuade police to return her phone calls, much less get someone to talk to the neighborhood boy the family suspects played a role.

    "My husband and daughter followed motor oil from a dripping can to within a block of his house," she said. "We never call police, and the one time we need them and the services our taxes pay for, they don't care."

    In Colorado Springs, where emergency responses suffer under a thin force and dwindling resources, police say they no longer can respond to vandalism - or a host of other crimes affecting quality of life.

    The Police Department in December stopped sending officers to certain property crimes and nonemergency calls to keep officers free for emergencies.

    Under what police call their "alternative response protocol," callers are instead directed to file a nonemergency report - in person at a police station, on the phone or on the Police Department's Web site. Unless there are clues pointing to a likely suspect, police will rarely be sent to investigate.

    Calls that no longer bring an officer include: 

    - Thefts from open garages, sheds, lockers and other storage buildings 

    - Vehicle break-ins and thefts of auto parts 

    - Gas drive-offs

    "This isn't something that we like the direction it's going," said police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms. "We don't like to be forced into reducing services and reducing responses, but it's the reality of the funding situation."

    According to the Police Department's 2007 crime statistics, there were 6,600 reports of vandalism and 12,501 "cold" thefts, meaning they were not in progress at the time of the report and callers couldn't provide information on a suspect.

    Except in rare cases, such crimes will no longer be investigated.

    The change will be a shock for those accustomed to getting face time with an officer when they're a crime victim, even if an incident doesn't qualify as an emergency under police guidelines.

    That was the case with Stacy Halde, who was told there was nothing police could do both times she called for help in February - once when someone broke into her boyfriend's car and once when someone vandalized her vehicle by spraying expandable foam into her muffler.

    Halde said she thinks highly of police, but has learned her lesson about relying on their help.

    "I know better than to even bother with them," she said, noting she changed the locks on her car, installed motion-sensor lights on her home and now carries pepper spray wherever she goes.

    Shane Young of Colorado Springs said it was like "pulling teeth" to get an officer after he became stranded in a back parking area at Red Rock Canyon Open Space on March 13 with his girlfriend and 13-year-old son.

    Someone broke into his Dodge Dakota, stole his billfold and slashed a tire, and Young was told officers don't respond to such crimes. But it was getting dark, and Young worried about the trio's safety - and the prospect of things getting worse.

    "I told them, ‘I'm here with a woman and child, it's dark, I can't be sure there's not someone out there with a knife and I don't have the means to protect myself," he said.

    The three found a ride home, and the next morning, a police officer called Young to notify him the pickup he had been forced to leave in the park had been set ablaze. The $17,000 vehicle was totaled.

    "I didn't feel safe,'" he said. "I understand (police) are strapped and pushed to their limits. But still, it's an issue because people do have certain expectations for their police force to protect and serve."

    Thomas, whose house was vandalized, said police began investigating a week after the vandals struck and three detectives are now working on the case.

    She said she would be willing to vote for a tax increase if it means getting that kind of service when the crime is fresh.

    "I would have hoped they would have hopped on leads the day after," she said, "but we were told they have too many cases."