COLORADO SPRINGS — A Fort Carson family wants answers about why it's taking Colorado Springs Police so long to help them.
Milly Brown, her husband, and their three-year-old son moved to Colorado Springs from North Carolina two weeks ago. They had been staying at a hotel while waiting for their home to be ready on post at Fort Carson. But in the middle of the night in mid-August, their car was broken into.
Brown said personal documents in a compartment in the trunk of their car, including social security cards, military IDs, their marriage license, and their son's birth certificate, were stolen.
“That next day we were supposed to move into our house, so we were packing everything to go. That's the only reason why it was in there," she said.
The family called Colorado Springs Police right away and said they were told it would be two to three days before someone could come out to help them.
"I think that's unacceptable," said Brown. “I don't have any identity to show who I am, so I can't legally access the post. All my credit cards are gone. All our accounts are frozen. All our assets are frozen at the moment. We can't reach anything."
Now, two weeks after the theft, Brown and her husband have new military IDs but are still waiting for CSPD to file a police report. CSPD said the temporary case number given to the family should be enough to file for new personal documents. The Brown family said, however, that their insurance needs the written report to move forward on their claim and to get a copy of their son's birth certificate from abroad.
“All of my son's information was taken. My son was born in South Korea, so he has a birth certificate abroad. His entire identity is gone," said Brown.
News5 reached out to CSPD four different times over the past two weeks for an on-camera interview about response times to crimes like these. Each time we were told they did not have anyone available.
"The time it takes to get the full case report is a case-by-case basis and depends on how much information a person has, the nature of the situation, etc," said a CSPD spokesperson via email.
The Brown family said they expect more communication and a quicker response from police in the city they now call home.
"I feel like they're not doing their service or their due diligence like they're supposed to. That's what they're for to serve and to protect. Nobody served me and nobody protected me," said Brown.
According to raw crime data available from the Colorado Springs Police Department website on Crime Level Data, there were 231 reported crimes involving theft from an automobile from August 1 to August 27, 2023. Of those cases, only 9 appear as 'cleared by arrest' while the remainder are still considered open cases.
The same data set returns 2538 cases involving theft from an automobile for all of 2023 so far. 99 of those are cases are listed as 'cleared by arrest'.
____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
