Is there anything an iPhone can’t do? Besides make clear calls, that is. But what is a drop-free call history compared to the peace of mind the $4.99 iCam app can bring?

Janet and Vincent Hunter were not at home Friday afternoon when two would-be-burglars were scoping out their Royal Place property from the back porch, but they still saw their every move. Thanks to a webcam positioned near the back door and the streaming video provided by iCam software, Vincent was alerted of movement in his backyard on his iPhone. He promptly called the police, and although the miscreants got away, at least they were empty-handed.

The iCam software coupled with a home alarm system kept the burglars from entering the property after they had smashed the glass door. The above video shows the two burglars peeping inside and searching around for a suitable object to break the window with before fleeing the scene. The camera was still running when the police arrived, and two officers are seen entering the property with guns drawn.

The Hunters’ prudent use of technology is causing a buzz. Vincent will be a guest on Good Morning America tomorrow to discuss the attempted burglary. Janet, away in Germany on business, won’t be able to attend. But she’s still staying up to date on the action across the pond. She saw the video Vincent posted on YouTube Saturday morning Deutsch time, and even took a call from this reporter earlier today. While all the attention is fun, Janet (who dubbed herself iJanet and her husband, iVince) said it’s more than just a love fest for technology.

“We’re really hoping to catch these guys through this exposure,” Janet said.

The Hunters aren’t the only ones who are looking for the burglars, as another house on Royal Place was broken into earlier that same afternoon. However, these victims were not outfitted with iCams and their home alarm unfortunately malfunctioned, giving the burglars plenty of time to ransack the place.

I think I just discovered Apple’s next marketing campaign.

UPDATE: A third house, this one a mile away on Lawnhaven Road, has reported a burglary with a similar MO. The burglars entered the home on Monday through a window on the back patio while the owners were at work and “ransacked” the place. Both burglarized houses have been described as “ransacked.” Apparently the criminals are making quite a mess, not merely grabbing the goods and getting out of there.

There’s more than one reason to ride the tollway. When you pony up and pay for pavement, you’re not only getting a less-trafficky road, you’re also getting extra speed limit leeway. The posted limit is higher than the freeway, 65 instead of the normal (and rarely observed) 60, but the real difference is far more than 5 mph. Tacit though it may be, the understanding is basically pay your fee and ride at your own risk. It’s Dallas’ version of the autobahn.

While this offers a certain, expedient advantage, it clearly has its pitfalls. Case in point: Motorcycle Gangs. At 7 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 8, about a dozen motorcyclists took over the 10000 block of the North Tollway, blocking all lanes of traffic, performing stunts and videotaping them, police reports said. One motorcyclist collided with a white 2005 Chrysler, causing $900 worth of damage, and then fled the scene.

Senior Corporal Kevin Janse of the Dallas Police Department said although accidents are uncommon, the reports of renegade riders are not. Janse said the department receives calls several times a month about the daredevils on two wheels.

“We try to get out there fast enough to catch them, but it’s such a brief incident,” he said.

Janse said the number of reports have diminished, as they previously received one or two calls a week.

We’re trying to put together a story 0n this and want to speak with PH residents who have encountered maniac motorcyclists on the tollway. So leave a comment, call us up, or email me at claire@peoplenewspapers.com

The dogs days of summer are winding down, and Preston Hollow ‘hoods are gearing up for the start of the new school year. An area of Preston Haven Neighborhood, from the east side of Preston between Royal and Forest lanes is enjoying a new sidewalk addition from the city of Dallas. This “high pedestrian traffic zone,” as deemed by the city, is now one of the more walk-able areas in Preston Hollow. Meanwhile, Northaven Park Neighborhood Association reported their lowest crime numbers on record for July, with only two residents reporting incidents. The association is crediting their “no soliciting, no advertising” door sticker campaign as well as an increased emphasis on dialing 911 with the low incidents of crime. What’s going on in your neck of the woods?

Yesterday, roundabouts 9:15 a.m., a couple of employees were getting ready to open up for business at Prosperity Bank in Preston-Forest. Then, someone tried to rob them. I’ll let the police report take it from here:

THE INSIDE DOORS TO THE LOC WERE STILL LOCKED. TWO UNK SUSPECTS
ENTERED THE FIRST SET OF DOOR WHICH WERE ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE BUILDING. THE WITNESS WAS SITTING AT HIS DESK WHICH IS RIGHT NEXT TO THE GLASS DOORS. SUSPECTS TRIED TO OPEN THE SECOND SET OF DOORS BUT WERE UNABLE TO. SUSPECT POINTED A PISTOL THREW [sic] A GLASS WINDOW AT THE WITNESS AND SAID ” OPEN THE [expletive] DOOR”. WITNESS GOT UNDER HIS DESK AND HIT THE PANIC ALARM AND YELLED ” GUN” TO THE RP WHO WAS IN ANOTHER ROOM. RP RAN AND HIT THE PANIC ALARM. SUSPECTS THEN LEFT LOC IN LISTED VEH. … SUSPECTS DID NOT GET ANY MONEY.

This morning, I stopped by the now-infamous pond where divers are still, after a full month, working to find evidence in the ‘83 slaying of Lowell Clayton Tribble. It was the first time, out of the several occasions I’d dropped by, that I was there when the divers were actually diving. So instead of calling the Dallas Police public information officer and being told that investigators aren’t interested in talking about anything yet, I was able to be told by the investigators themselves. I spoke briefly with a captain (who introduced himself but whose name I don’t recall), who was sitting on a lawn chair in the driveway of a house on the west side of the pond. He said, politely, that no, they wouldn’t be discussing the investigation. Fine, I said, I was more curious about the stuff, which is (I’m assuming) totally unrelated to the investigation, that has been dragged out of the muck by divers. Is it some sort of stolen vehicle dumping ground? Where did all that stuff come from? But no, not that either. I’d have to wait until the investigation was over.

“I guess that would be whenever you find whatever it is in the pond you’re looking for?” I asked.

“You can guess all you want, but you’ll have to do it from a public street,” he said, pointing me to Northaven Road.

Ouch.

Anyhoo, in the absence of any background on how or why they got there, here’s a quick inventory, compiled from police reports, of things that have been pulled from the pond since June 16:

-eight motorcycle frames

-eight motorcycle engines

-one safe

-one metal lockbox

-several assault rifle components

-one handgun

And to illustrate the thankless job these divers are doing, a choice passage from one of the police reports:

WHILE SEARCHING THE BOTTOM OF THE POND WITH A METAL
DETECTOR R/O DETECTED A SIGNAL FROM THE METAL DETECTOR THAT INDICATED METAL
UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE MUD. R/O DUG DOWN TO ABOUT SHOULDER LENGTH AND
RECOVERED A METAL BOX ABOUT TWELVE INCHES BY 18 TO 15 INCHES IN DIMENSION.

Shoulder-length in the bottom of Northaven Pond. [Shudder]

In a May lawsuit, the parents of a former Episcopal School of Dallas alleged that former history teacher John Nathan Campbell had a seven-month long sexual relationship with an underage student. Dallas police, following a seven-month investigation, would seem to agree. Campbell, 34, was arrested without incident yesterday at his mother’s northeast Dallas condominium, said Lt. C.L. Williams, head of the Dallas Police Department’s child abuse squad.

Campbell, who left the school voluntarily in December, was booked into Lew Sterrett jail around 4 p.m., charged with an “improper relationship between educator and student,” a second degree felony. If convicted, Campbell faces between 2 and 20 years in prison. His bond was set at $5,000.

A mugshot will be posted as soon as the Dallas County PIO gets back to me.

Some of you might remember Terrell Bolton, the disgraced chief of the Dallas Police Department who was fired in 2003 and, more recently, canned from his post in DeKalb County, Georgia. (Jacquielynn Floyd gives a nice, concise recap of the past decade of his career in a recent column.) Heck, even I remember him from back when I was in high school and didn’t pay attention to anything related to local news that wasn’t a Mavericks score.

Anyhow, Bolton is still bent on keeping the city safe. The 51-year-old was headed south on the Dallas North Tollway at 9:30 last night in his 2006 Range Rover when a group of motorcyclists approached from behind. One pulled between Bolton’s SUV and a Ford pickup in the adjacent lane, then somehow kicked the Range Rover’s passenger-side mirror (which is, apparently, physically possible. Maybe while doing a handstand?) before speeding away. To add insult to injury, the driver of the pickup, whom Bolton believed to be the ring leader of the motorcycle group, laughed and flipped Bolton the bird.

I can tell you all this because Bolton “just wanted to report this to police so that’d they’d know about the incident,” according to a police report from last night, which can be found here. He also gave a full account to a state trooper on the Tollway just so they would be aware of the “rash” acts of certain motorcyclists.

While there is no mention made of anyone getting cold feet, it sure seems that Saturday night’s wedding at Royal Lane Baptist Church could have gone smoother. Seems that, during the ceremony, the room in which the bride and bridesmaids were keeping their things (because no one wants to be holding their purse while their getting married) was broken into. Several things were stolen, including a $500 Canon digital camera, several credit cards, and $140 cash, according to police reports.

For those who speak police-ese, here’s the narrative included in one of the complaints filed with police:

COMPLAINANT STATED THAT SHE WAS AT OFFENSE LOCATION FOR A WEDDING. COMPLAINANT
STATED THAT THE BRIDE MAIDS AND THE BRIDE LEFT THEIR BELONGINGS IN THE ROOM,
WHERE THEY WERE CHANGING. COMPLAINANT STATED ON LISTED DATE AND BETWEEN THE
LISTED TIMES UNKNOWN SUSPECT(S) REMOVED THE LISTED PROPERTY FROM HER PURSE
WITHOUT PERMISSION. COMPLAINANT STATED THAT SHE CALLED ON 7-3-10 TO CANCEL HER
CREDIT CARD AND FOUND OUT THAT THE CREDIT CARD HAD NOT BEEN USED. COMPLAINANT
STATED THAT OTHER MEMBERS OF THE WEDDING PARTY, INCLUDING THE BRIDE, HAD
PROPERTY REMOVED. NFI END OF ELEMENTS

Have plans for lunch? Let me suggest you patronize Extreme Pizza in Preston Center, and not just because they’ve advertised with us. No, my suggestion stems from the fact that the joint was robbed of $900 early Monday morning.

Landing in my inbox just moments ago, a missive from Dallas Police with may be the awesomest  subject line I’ve seen in a while: “Loud Crashing noise leads Dallas Police to North Park Mall”. Classic.

So what was the commotion that so mobilized Dallas Police that they sent out a press release? Were the hammering men in that one foyer somehow sabotaged? Did a Justin Bieber sighting end in some sort of grisly chaos?

No and no. Turns out it was someone who drove a white or light-colored Ford truck through an exterior door on the south side of the mall, then smack into a Dillard’s security door at 2:43 this morning. Detectives believe they were going after two ATMs. Mall employees apparently scared them off.

No one was hurt except for NorthPark’s $10,000 glass security door.