Call to vigilance

Following the Memorial Day robbery at Another Broken Egg Café, changes have been made to keep Mountain Brook safer.

“On the day it happened, [police] arrived quickly and were very supportive,” said Another Broken Egg Café General Manager Justin Hadley. “They stayed in contact with me in the days after. They adhered to my request for more patrols in the early morning hours and in the afternoon.”  

Hadley said he now sees two separate patrols pass by Another Broken Egg Café in the early morning and afternoon. 

The robbery was the first business robbery in Mountain Brook in 2015. Three other robberies occurred against individuals since January. One was a carjacking outside a residence on West Jackson Boulevard, another was in an Office Park parking lot and the third was in the Macy’s parking lot at Brookwood Village. Three individuals were arrested in connection to the carjacking, and one suspect was arrested in connection to the parking lot robberies.

These crimes gained a lot of attention on social media, something Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Cook said can make crime seem more prevalent than statistics show.

“It’s not that it’s wrong, but it’s just that sometimes the way social media posts comments back and forth, it can have a multiplying effect on the actual events that are ongoing right then,” Cook said.

Another crime that garnered attention on social media was the Dec. 20 robbery at Jemison Park. Four teenage girls were approached by a suspect with a semi-automatic handgun, and many people shared the story as well as updates. A sketch of the robbery suspect was released in April, bringing attention back to the incident.

Despite these attention-grabbing crimes, Cook said crime numbers so far in 2015 seemed “average” compared to past years and that in 2014 the community saw a five-year low in residential and business burglaries, car break-ins and thefts.

At the start of the year, seven car break-ins occurred between Jan. 9-10, according to the Mountain Brook PD community update. This level of frequency did not continue past that weekend; 11 more car break-ins occurred in the months between Jan. 30 and June 11. In 2014, there were 25 car break-ins reported between Jan. 1 and June 12, seven more than the same time period in 2015.

This year has also seen fewer residential burglaries — four compared to last year’s 21 reports from January to June — and two more car thefts.

For all three car thefts reported in 2015, the cars were all unlocked and sometimes had spare keys inside. Cook said criminals in these situations could be deterred by simple safety measures.

“We just always stress to the community the best way to help themselves [and] help us protect them is by locking their car [and] house doors,” Cook said. “Don’t leave valuables visible in a car where someone might bust a window and take it easily.”

Vigilance is also important. If anyone sees suspicious activity, they should notify police, Cook said.

“Give the police department a call, and let us get there and check it out,” he said. “It may be nothing, but it’s a whole lot better to give us a call when it’s happening than well after the fact.”

The faster information gets to police, the faster they can act and possibly apprehend a suspect, Cook said. A witness account helped identify the suspect in the Brookwood Village robbery, for example.  

Police monitor crime reports to keep criminal activities down and sometimes adjust manpower to fit the community’s needs, as with the increased patrols near Another Broken Egg. 

In addition to police patrols, Hadley said the restaurant has made security improvements to ensure another robbery doesn’t occur. More security cameras have been installed on the front and back of the building as well as inside, the security alarm system has been upgraded, and policies and procedures have been modified.

“There’s no more dillydallying of taking your time to close up shop,” Hadley said. “[As] part of the policies and procedures, the priority of the restaurant is to get those chores and duties done as soon as possible so the back door and front door can be locked as soon as possible.”

There are also at least five people in the restaurant at all times. On Memorial Day, the lack of restaurants and shops open in Mountain Brook, combined with fewer workers in the store, created an “appealing” image for criminals, Hadley said. On future Monday holidays — “any Monday holiday when Avo & Dram is closed,” Hadley said — there will also be an off-duty police officer at the restaurant.

“It obviously gave someone the opportunity to come when we were vulnerable, on a day when not a lot of shops were open,” Hadley said. “So I wanted to take away that enticing image for someone to come again.”

Hadley said he has seen vigilance in the community, in addition to support from customers. Despite the robbery, he still views Mountain Brook as one of the safer communities in the greater Birmingham area thanks to security improvements and community efforts.

“Mountain Brook did suffer some robberies and burglaries,” he said, “but everyone in the community seems to be on the same page and looking out for each other and are aware of vulnerabilities that have been remedied.”