Police say that they have arrested two women accused of committing nearly two dozen residential burglaries in the Austin area since the summer, according to an arrest affidavit.

Cristal Gomez, 18, and Kayla Wright, 19 have been charged with burglary after police said they committed at least four burglaries in one day in October. They are among at least 20 burglaries police say the two Austin women have committed, according to the affidavit.

Full Story (h/t Tim). Do read the whole story; it’s not long, but is full of important details.

So what can we learn here:

• Two women. In fact, two teenagers.
  • Be mindful of your assumptions about who commits crimes. As well, consider your response to those crimes — do you have a different reaction because they are women? Because they are young?
    • Reactions aren’t just “how I would defend myself”. It’s even your own political and personal feelings. I mean, 10 seconds ago when you read the above words, what reaction did you have, and was any of it based upon gender or age?
    • Then the question is, should gender and/or age affect or change our reactions, in a case like this?
• Serial criminals. This wasn’t their first rodeo.
  • In fact, look at the charges levied against them, including assault.
    • Knowing at least one of them was violent, does that change your above reactions and responses?
• All crimes listed happened on a weekday (October 9 was a Tuesday) during “work day” hours.
  • They aren’t looking for a fight, just a quick score. Note they took TV’s, cameras, jewelry – things easy to sell to make a buck.
  • If someone was home, they fled. No resistance, no desire for fight. Of course, that’s why the break-ins were at the time/day they were – best chances of no one being home, nor witnesses being around.
  • It appears the break-ins were easy scores – removing a window-unit air conditioner, going through doors and windows. No mention made of efforts to secure the houses, useful dogs, or the like, but the lack of such information in the article doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

There’s much to learn here, especially perhaps about our biases.