Two Handguns Among Property Taken in Daylight Burglary

Two semiautomatic handguns were among the property stolen from a Wauwatosa resident in a daylight burglary Friday, prompting police to issue an alert to surrounding communities.

According to Wauwatosa police:

A resident of the 11300 block of West Wisconsin Avenue reported at 6 p.m. that at some time since 7:15 a.m., his home had been broken into and a number of electronic devices and the two handguns had been stolen.

Apparently, the burglars had broken in through a side window in broad daylight and then carried not only the guns, but a number of large and small electronic appliances out the front door.

A neighbor saw a car parked in the driveway early in the afternoon but did not report it.

The victim had come home in the evening to find the screen on his side door ripped, a side window broken and the front door standing open. He had locked both doors when he left in the morning.

The house had been rifled thoroughly: a 46-inch flat-screen TV and a laptop computer were missing from the living room; two semiautomatic handguns, a 9mm and a 22-caliber, a 19-inch TV and a DVD player were gone from his bedroom; and another laptop computer had been stolen from his office. He calculated that the property was altogether worth $6,550.

Long guns under his bed – the police report did not say whether they were rifles, shotguns or both – were either not discovered by the intruders or were not taken.

Officers canvassed the neighborhood and learned that a car had been seen parked in the victim’s driveway at around 1:30 p.m. Descriptions of the car, possibly an early 1990s model Toyota Celica, light blue or silver-blue, and of the two handguns, were sent to surrounding agencies.

The owner was able to provide police with a serial number for only the 9mm pistol. He was trying to find out the serial number for the other weapon.