Leisure World Not Upset Over Thefts

To Leisure World residents in Laguna Woods, neighborhood crime has mostly meant a teen taking a golf cart for a joy ride without permission.

But it took on a more serious tone recently when five cars were reported stolen in two weeks -- the same number reported for all of 2003.

“This is such a really safe place,” said Mary Stone, president of one of the homeowner associations. “We can walk at night. The only thing we worry about are the coyotes at night, and falling.”

Until the recent car thefts, many residents -- whose average age is 78 -- left their keys in cars. Of the five cars reported stolen, at least three had keys in them.

“Living in a gated community gives a false sense of security for residents,” said Lt. Bob Hogbin of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The reported car thefts in the gated senior citizen community present investigators with challenges they might not encounter elsewhere.

Sometimes deputies investigating car thefts discover that family members have removed a resident’s vehicle for safety reasons. And other times, they find that the owner just parked in a different place and forgot where the car was left.

One of the owners who reported her car stolen last week later remembered she had parked it at Macy’s nearby.

Richard Sharp, vice president of the security committee for United Laguna Hills Mutual, one of the homeowner associations, said older people need special handling.

“I’m 67, and I’m a youngster here,” he said. “You have to live here to appreciate what goes on here. There’s a lot of Alzheimer’s and people with memory loss, not to mention problems with their vision.”

Last year, Sharp said, a resident reported the wheels of his Cadillac stolen. “It turned out that his family had taken them because they didn’t want him driving anymore,” Sharp said.

The United Mutual board met last Friday with Leisure World’s security committee. When the car thefts were mentioned, they were taken in stride by board members, Stone said.

“What happens around here is they usually make a report that there are stolen cars and then they’re found,” Stone said. “That happens a lot of the time, and for us here, it’s not an unusual thing.”

On Tuesday, authorities recovered another of the cars stolen last week.

The car was parked two blocks from the owner’s home. Retired Time magazine reporter Bette Penzell, 81, said she did not leave it there.

For Penzell, the car theft was ironic. She left a crime-ridden area of downtown Los Angeles and moved to Orange County, only to have her car stolen.

“It’s been a wild and woolly week in Grandma City,” she said.

In the meantime, deputies have stepped up patrols while they investigate whether the missing autos are the work of a car-theft ring.