Bullet holes in Security Light Nov. 13, 2011

Photo of the entry bullet hole in our dawn to dusk security lamp shade taken form the inside of shadeAdd caption

On Sunday afternoon, Nov. 13, 2011 we were working in our garage cleaning up. I saw a clear curved glass shard lying on the ground just outside the door, just under our  dusk to dawn security light. I looked up and the bulb in the lamp looked odd.  It looked like something was different, where did the glass shard come from, nothing was making sense. We saw a hole in the shade where the aluminum and plastic meet. We didn't know what to do. We thought lets wait to see if the light comes on at dusk. It did. What was left was filament which lit up despite the lack of the bulbous glass enclosure which contains the gas.

On Nov. 14, I went to the recycling center in Bethlehem to drop off cardboard. I then went to Lowes to get a replacement bulb. I took the old bulb box for identification. I spoke with a sale person in bulbs and explained the situation and showed him a photo of the lamp from the ground. He said that if it is just the filament lighting, because the filament was not damages, it was a VERY hazardous situation and the bulb should be taken out immediately. Since I am alone and Scott is in NYC, it was nothing I could do on my own. I did set up the ladder, but I remember it was a very precarious job since I had put in a new bulb this past July. We have a policy between us that the rules are, Never get up on a ladder unless you have someone to spot you and never operate the Chain Saw when alone. I did climb the ladder a bit, to get better photos, but not to the top. Scott and I had conversed through the day and decided to call the Lower Saucon  Township Police after he got home from work, which was about 9:15 PM. We don't trust the Police and have evidence to support those beliefs and we won't call the Police when either of us is alone. That day I rechecked our motion activated video security system records and there were no events which had us spooked. We were under the impression that the light was shot at from below and our system would have gotten any activity. We later would find out otherwise. We have no idea of when the light was shot at since the filament was still operating. The lamp did have a strange brightness, but it didn't ring any bells.

 We called the Police at 9:20 PM, at 9:30 PM Patrolman Kyle Haggerty arriveVidVideeod. He was the patrolman  who interviewed us about the thief from another neighbor's property where we appeared to be the only suspects. We showed him the Security lamps and you could see the large exit hole  from the ground. We showed him the old  bulb as comparison. We told him we were miffed that our security system didn't record any event. I had the ladder set up before he arrived. The Filament was challenging to look at because it was very very bright and blinding. He advised us to wait until the next day to replace the bulb. I was determined to do it last night for some real practical reason. The Patrolman left, I got the car out of the garage to use the headlights to light up the ladder, I turned off the circuit that controls the garage, put on my head lamp, Scott held a hand flood. I climbed the ladder to the top. It is very precarious because I have to do some reaching. I had heavy leather work gloves on because I had to reach in and unscrew the old bulb. I did that and climbed down the ladder and gave the old bulb to Scott. I had already prepared the handling of the replacement bulb. You can't touch the glass with you bare fingers because the skin oils will shorten the life of the bulb. I had it wrapped in paper towels. I screwed it in. As I was doing so, I noticed a small hole in the metal shade on the opposite side of the large hole. It was an entry wound, the size of a .22 caliber bullet. The large hole was an exit hole but it lined up with the entry hole. So our whole premise that the shot was fired below the lamp was wrong. The shot came from the West, the location of our  Stalking Neighbor's property and home. It appears to have been fired from the region of their  front porch/drive. The  path of the holes in the shade leads to their home. The bullet just nicked the glass of the bulb, and broke the glass bulb, but not the filiment. Recently we have been harassed by  gun fire from that spot, next door, mostly .22 caliber. Often when we would step outside our kitchen door, a  single gun shot would be fired. We got the impression that the shots were not random but very often coincided with our activities. Like they were waiting for us to exit- very disturbing.

We have since received the Patrolman Haggerty's report and we believe the Police are protecting Jesse Repash and Brett. Neither of them were interviewed in the report.  We believe the bullet hole was put there on Oct. 1 2011. A day filled with harassment and Jesse was forced to move his ATV from the shared drive where he had parked it to provoke us.