The Seeley Lake region saw an uptick in burglaries last week with three reported in just seven days. But according to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department they aren’t related incidents and they aren’t even all burglaries.
The public record lists the incidents as burglaries, because that is what was reported to the Sheriff’s Office but after investigation they didn’t fit that description.
“One was due to a bear, one was a loose boat,” said Jeannette Smith, Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer “There were no crimes, no charges, just information taken on all of them.”
What is released in the weekly call log is how the call is reported but it doesn’t always reflect how the office characterizes it after investigating.
Smith added that an increase in calls about burglaries or thefts normally happens at this time of year.
“A lot of folks are starting to open up their summer homes and when they do that they find things that have been stolen, things that have been messed with or walked off with and they start reporting them,” Smith said.
In a place like Seeley Lake, where so many of the residents are gone for much of the year, a rise in crime reports in the early summer can really just be a collection of months worth of activity that’s being noticed and reported at one time and can create misleading statistics.
But regardless of how that might look like a seasonal boost in criminal activity, residents should always call law enforcement for emergencies and to report crimes which may have happened in their absence.
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