GLENDALE, AZ -- Jeff Daukas is a Pawn and Metals Investigation Detective in the Foothills Investigation Team for the Glendale Police Department.
“I think that a lot of people look at property crimes as somewhat of a back burner issue,” unless of course you were the one burglarized said Detective Daukas.
He added that what most people don’t realize is many of the people busted for burglary have also been convicted of other, more violent crimes.
Todd Griffith oversees all four regional crime labs for the Department of Public Safety and as he explained, “When we get hits in the database for sex assaults and sex assault cases about 61 percent of those are hits against people convicted in burglary and other nonviolent crimes so getting to those cases does become very important.”
Daukas said, “The people who are doing these low level back burner crimes are traditionally the ones who have done crimes before.”
For example, Griffith said Glendale submitted 124 no-suspect burglary cases to its lab for DNA analysis.
They ran it through a DNA database and got 67 hits. That means in more than half of the cases they were able to find the burglar because his/her DNA was already in the system.
Griffith said that closure rate is “remarkable” and speaks to the power of DNA to solve property crime cases.
Daukas said, “They are able to take virtually an unsolvable case, process it for DNA and we can link the DNA to someone who we may not have previously known did the crime. That allows me as a detective then to go find these people, interview them and maybe make an arrest.”
Daukas added that as they begin to close burglary cases, “we find cases all over the Valley where these people are involved in aggravated assault, attempted homicide, drug trafficking, and without using DPS and their ability to analyze DNA, I'm not sure we'd be able to be as successful.”
“Burglaries are a huge violation of privacy and security. I want to go home at night and feel safe, the people that I serve in the community want to go home and be safe," Daukas said.
"When that last little line of defense at home is violated what do you have? Hopefully you have a detective and a police officer and a department and a community that stands in the gap and says what you are doing is wrong and we are going to solve your crime.”
Daukas said that’s why he asks people to be a good witness by not touching anything if you realize you’ve been broken into.
“People need to understand that DNA is everywhere, from the minute you wake up and yawn to when you go to bed you are leaving DNA everywhere, so if your home unfortunately does get burglarized understand that there are points of entry," he said.
"Don't touch surfaces you think the suspect touched because even though stuff is invisible we can still collect DNA.”
