Beyond scary! This is a reminder to all women that you don't have to open the door to anybody.. back to the basics of being safe when "your parents are not home" protocol.

I agree with this. No matter, where you live today, these nuts don't care. Never answer the phone when you know is an strange number and never give your name or the name of the member of the household.
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Every home owner should be armed

Thanks to both Livingston and W.O. PDs for their quick action to capture the suspect! They have done many amazing jobs making arrests in many cases.

The really sad part about this (and tons of other cases) is that if you really follow through on the case, you will see that no matter how hard our local PDs work to get criminal in our areas, the charge will eventually be downgraded by the Essex county prosecutor office in Newark. Looks like they usually treat crimes in our area like a joke, which is understandable if you only compare to the crimes there. At the end, there will only be a $300 fine with no jail time. The fine that is even cheaper than when our residents water the lawn in a wrong odd-even day.

i feel very safe on North Hillside Ave. The police are always up and down the street all day long.maybe someone knew the residents weren't home during the day.

The crime is out of control. Car thefts on Northfield in the morning outside of Dunkin Donuts, now house break-ins... What is next? Car Jackings on Livingston Avenue? Need more police patrolling. Where are our HIGH taxes going?

Any news on the arson attack on the construction site in Short hills?

I feel that someone who commits a home invasion should do a long duration of jail time. This person was lucky that she didn't get killed. The laws need to be more stricter otherwise these thugs will continue to commit these crimes. does it hane to take a person to loose their life in order for the laws to change. I have been livining in Livingston for the past 20 years and I still don't feel safe. People are more desperate and the bad economy does not help. However, that does not give anyone the right to go into your home. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Yeh, maybe cops in our town should patrol to stop car jackings and home invasions, and focus less on the teenagers smoking weed.

I completly agree with Bob. We should focus more in lunatics like Ben kraus, and less in teenagers smoking weed.

I think people should have the street smart & common sense to protect themselfs.specially women should take a self defense classes.I live in town & I can protect myself and my neighbors.I have several belts in mixed martial arts & other self defense techniques.

I can tell that the police are patrolling our streets a lot. I don't think I can go out around town each day without facing a patrol car. Our police actually captured many of these criminals. Like I said, the problem is not our police. It is the prosecutor office. The prosecutor web page said it all. They screened out almost 40% of the cases. (http://www.njecpo.org/munscr.htm) Also, Raquel, no law needs to be changed. Just need to voice to our county official that they need to take crimes in suburban towns seriously. At least these people should get jail time. Don't send the cases back to muni courts which can do fines only like $300.

This story is deeply shocking to me. 3 houses were broken into in Short Hills at 11:30am int he last few months (thankfully no one was home in any of these incidents).

It is very inaccurate to call someone who breaks into a home, ties up a resident and punches the resident a "thief". These are multiple violent offenses committed in the middle of the day - robbery, aggravated assault, kidnapping, theft and criminal restraint. No word on whether he was armed as well. The criminal was obviously unconcerned about being identified. If the victim had not called the police she might've been killed.

To add insult to injury "the thief was leaving in his silver Mercedes" - so the criminal was driving a Mercedes? From the photo it looks to be in great condition and relatively new. That tells me he wasn't a desperate drug addict.

This incident displays an extreme disregard for police and the likelihood of being caught and punished. Think about it - the criminal drove his car to the house. Rang the doorbell. Then when the resident answered and refused to open the door decided to break in, tie her up, ransack the house while dragging her from room to room and when she escapes and calls the police, returns to brutalize her before leaving. He wasn't even in hurry when he knew the police had been called. Terrifying Event!
This goes many many steps beyond theft from a parked car. This guy needs to go away for 25 years.

i think he is a nice guy i no him