Residents on edge after video appears to show home break-in attempt

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - Residents of South Philadelphia's Pennsport neighborhood are on edge tonight after the posting to Facebook of a video that appears to show a home break-in attempt.

The video-- taken from a home security camera-- shows a handful of young people walking down the sidewalk on the 1700 block of East Moyamensing, Saturday night. One member of the group walks up the steps of a home and appears to try the front door-- presumably to see if it's unlocked. It is not.

Doreen Beaver lives right next door to that home and was stunned at the video.

"It's scary," she told FOX 29's Bruce Gordon. "That's why I have an alarm on my house. Got a steel door. What could you do? It's sad."

The apparent close call on Moyamensing coincided with a rash of vehicle break-ins in the Pennsport neighborhood--at least three Saturday night alone.

Carolyn Braciszewski's van was among the targets. Thieves smashed a side window.

"I lost a duffel bag with some gym clothes and sneakers," said Braciszewski, "And my daughter's wallet was in the glove compartment."

And there were house keys in the van causing Carolyn to change her locks.

Pennsport is considered a nice neighborhood--stable, well-maintained homes with a lot of expensive new town houses going up all over the place. When crime does strike, people around here spread the word fast.

"It is pretty tight-knit,"says Carl Weber, who moved from Center City four years ago, to get more home for his dollar. "We know the neighbors and so forth. It has a good sense of neighborhood."

But some in this neighborhood are worried. Doreen Beaver says groups of kids come out of the nearby park to cause chaos. She says they torched a newspaper vending box at Moyamensing and Morris a couple of weeks ago and damage cars regularly.

"You just have these kids that are vandalizing because they don't have nothing else to do," says Beaver. "I mean, come on!"