Rantz: Creepy porch pirates steal Christmas gifts, Tacoma police union warns they’re not staffed for this

A pair of porch pirates, who appear to be homeless, stole a package filled with Christmas gifts from the porch of a family in Tacoma. Now, the homeowner says she’s frightened by what her community has become.

The theft occurred on Dec. 4 at approximately 4:45 p.m. in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood. Surveillance footage shared with “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH showed two men walking past the home. One of them, draped in a thick beige blanket, casually wanders up to the porch and spots the package. After a brief consultation with his accomplice, the man returns, creepily tiptoeing toward the porch like a cartoon villain, grabs a large package and conceals it under his blanket before scurrying off.

The homeowner, who shared the footage, said she’d never seen these men in her neighborhood before. The brazen theft has left her uneasy, raising concerns about the safety and direction of her community.

“It definitely made me feel unsafe and no longer want to live in Tacoma. The Hilltop area has so much potential if the city put effort into making it better,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

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Can Tacoma Police handle the porch pirates?

Porch piracy explodes during the holiday season. In 2023, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue mSotetropolitan area was named the worst region for package theft in the U.S., according to a report by SafeWise.

The porch pirate concern is made worse as the Tacoma Police Department (TPD) suffers with low staffing and high call volume. They simply don’t have the staff to tackle porch pirates or any other holiday-related crime in Tacoma.

“Staffing has remained short and we have maintained about 10% shortage despite many efforts to get fully staffed,” Tacoma Police Union President Henry Betts explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. “We frequently remain at minimum staffing for call responding and cannot fill specialty units because of lack of staffing. Package theft and too many lower priority response calls do not get addressed at the level of service the community needs and deserves because of low staffing.”

The homeowner knows it will be difficult to make an arrest. She said she wishes TPD had access to “equipment that would help them identify the person’s face even when they have a mask on or another sort of cover-up on.”

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