Breezy Point Residents Call Recent Rash Of Burglaries A 'Kick In The Pants' After Sandy

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - In one of the areas hardest hit by superstorm Sandy, residents are now coping with a brand new violation.

In Breezy Point, Queens, more than 100 homes were destroyed by fire on the night Sandy hit.

Many residents who returned after Thanksgiving returned to find their homes ransacked and robbed.

Since Sandy hit, Robert Bainbridge has filed reports with his insurance company and federal agencies.

On Thanksgiving, he filed a police report after he said someone broke in and burglarized his house.

"I was a little dumbfounded because I thought I had the house pretty well secured," Bainbridge told CBS 2's Drew Levinson.

His wife Dorenda and daughter Katie said the burglars rifled through almost everything in their bedrooms, taking jewelry and money.

"How dare you kick us when we are down? You feel it in your gut, you feel it deep inside you, it's such a wound," Dorenda Bainbridge told Levinson.

Other homes in the community were also hit over the holiday, adding insult to injury said some neighbors.

"It's just a kick in the pants to have this happen on top of everything," Bill Schlageter told Levinson.

The thieves did not take many big items like television sets, instead stealing things they could easily put in their pockets without raising any suspicions, Levinson reported.

Police said the robbers took mostly jewelry, coins and cash.

"Unbelievable, unbelievable. They should rot in hell," a neighbor said when she heard about the break-ins.

Bainbridge, who is a graphic artist, drew a picture of gun with warning that he's armed and put it on his door to ward of any other would-be robbers.

"To keep people out of the stronghold of my house and protect property and the establishment that my wife and my daughter and I live in," he told Levinson.

Other neighbors called the situation disheartening, characterizing Breezy Point as a community where everyone knows everyone else and saying they cannot imagine who would have broken into their homes.

In the immediate wake of the storm, Rockaway residents told 1010 WINS reporter Gary Baumgarten that looting and thievery have become such serious threats that taking up arms and fleeing town are the best options for staying safe.

Residents from Staten Island to the Jersey Shore also saw lootings and, like Bainbridge, some warned that they had guns and would use them if necessary.

In Hillside, New Jersey, two North Carolina men who came to New Jersey to take part in post-Sandy recovery efforts have been accused of trying to rob a drug store.

David Dockery, 28,  and Jerry Lee Williams, 34, were arrested on Thanksgiving night and charged with burglary and criminal mischief, the Star Ledger Reported.

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