Woman Robbed Tuesday Evening at Gunpoint through Open Window of Car

Posted by: Noël Jones


This one is disturbing. According to today's article by Stephen Novak of the Express-Times, last night a woman smoking a cigarette out an open window on the passenger side of a car was robbed at gunpoint while the car was idling at an intersection. The driver of the car was waiting for the light to change at the corner of Warren and Pine Streets and aside from the passenger who was robbed, had two children in the back seat of the car. Easton Police took the report just after 6:00 p.m.


When I first moved to Easton four years ago, a common description of Easton's crime level that I heard from residents was, "there is a fair amount of crime, but it's just domestic violence episodes and drug dealers and addicts robbing and shooting each other--there's no random violent crime--if you're not involved with hoodlums, you've got nothing to worry about." I was disturbed at this description, because bullets are not like heat-seeking missiles that swerve
around innocent bystanders to strike only dealers and junkies. But after living here a few years, I came to understand how the perception developed, because most incidents of crime in Easton that I read about proved to be either related to domestic violence, addiction or dealing, and usually happened in the middle of the night. 


In the last year, though, I have noticed more incidents of random crime in the news--a handicapped person robbed at an ATM downtown, an attempted kidnapping of a Lafayette student, bank robberies, a rash of storefront burglaries, and now this--the random mugging of a woman in a car idling at traffic light with children in the back seat in the early evening.


It's really important to acknowledge that deep in the middle of this recession, people are getting more and more desperate, and that desperation is not only related to domestic violence and drug dealing. On a deeper level, we need to address the problems of domestic violence and drug dealing in our community through programming, but on an immediate level, with regard to random crime, we all need to be aware, and cautious of this uptick in desperation crimes. I have always been pretty careful in this regard, and one thing I always do is lock my car doors as soon as I get into my car. I also never leave my windows open while at an intersection, and am aware of people walking along or crossing the street that I am on. I think this is good advice for anyone, but especially for women.


I also want to appeal again to everyone to leave your porch lights on at night, so that we as a community make the streets less dark, discouraging flagrant acts of open-air crime and making it easier for all good residents to be aware of their surroundings at night. I leave my porch lights on every night for my neighbors who might be coming home late, to brighten up the block.


If you have other safety tips, please post them here. The suspect is only described as a black male wearing a blue North Face jacket, with a multi-colored bandana over his face. Anyone who has information that might be helpful to our police officers, please call Detective Christopher Miller at 610-250-6656.