Burglars At Work

Criminals are working harder in this down economy.

Here is the breakdown of home break-ins in the past week.

150 in unincorporated Palm Beach County. On the Treasure Coast: The city of Port St. Lucie had 17 home burglaries.  St. Lucie County had 18. Fort pierce cam ein with the lowest number of break-ins: 8.  Martin County deputies responded to 21 break-ins to homes in the past week.

In Jensen Beach, 82 year-old Faye Cooper tried to punch out her burglar, who repeatedley demanded cash and drugs from her home when he broke in this weekend.

"I was scared to death," said Faye Cooper, "82 year old woman.. You know all I had, he was coming right at me, that man got as close as this to me and I just walluped him with that phone as hard as I could. I am sure he has a sore nose because I hit him right in the face."

Martin County Deputies arrested 30 year-old Andrew Borremans for the attack and burglary on Cooper.

Port St. Lucie police say as the economy goes down and jobs are scarce, crimes of opportunity go up.

"Out of desperation, out of opportunity, people are going to look to try and find that golden ticket." said Port St. Lucie Police Captain Don Kryak. "in some cases they don't realize the occupant is home. In other cases, they just don't care because of desperation, they will take their chances on whether they get caught or not."

Analysts say the high unemployment rate may explain why we are seeing an uptick in burglaries. Nearly all of the burglaries happened in broad daylight.