Liz Shepherd, 62, lives in Pretty Prairie, Kansas — a windswept town an hour west of Wichita, with a population of 680 and nothing but miles and miles of flat earth in seemingly every direction. It’s the kind of small town where people grow up never locking their doors. Even today, there is no police department in town.
In an odd twist of fate, a floppy piece of plastic Shepherd sells out of her home in Pretty Prairie has become something of a cult hero in the Richmond District, thanks to how elegantly it prevents theft.
Over the last few weeks, thieves in the Richmond have increasingly targeted a specific vulnerability that allows garage doors to be opened from the outside. Motion-detector lights and catching the thieves on camera haven’t helped — but neighbors have discovered a solution in a simple latch shield, which Shepherd sells directly to people who email her.
Shepherd first started thinking about the latch In 2009, when she and her husband Jeff stumbled across a YouTube video dubbed “Breaking into a garage in six seconds.” The video demonstrated how a burglar could slip a coat hanger through the top edge of a garage door and yank the emergency release latch that hangs off the motor’s main rail. Pulling the latch unlocks the garage door, giving full access to anyone outside.
With their curiosity piqued, Liz and Jeff began researching solutions to this ingenious new break-in tactic. The latter worked as a mechanic for an aerospace company, and had a knack for inventing and crafting all manner of gadgets.
“Through trial and error, we came up with this flexible piece of ABS plastic that can be molded into a cover for the release latch,” Liz tells me. “You put the rope and the handle into it, and you pop it over the track and put a nylon nut and bolt. It travels the rail and never needs to come off.”
Then, unexpectedly, Jeff died in late 2010. Liz didn’t know what to do with her life, let alone their half-baked plans to make and sell a security device. Ultimately, she decided to commit to their project, working with a manufacturer in China to create and package the white, oblong latch shields.
“And then I had thousands of pieces of this product I needed to figure out what to do with,” Shepherd says with a laugh.
Once upon a time, Shepherd sold her shields at the Kansas State Fair and traveled to places like Illinois and Florida, looking for more customers. These days, however, she has a more passive approach: No website, no ads, just word-of-mouth, selling latches to anyone who sends her an email.
One of the ways people get that email is through Mark Dietrich, a 54-year-old Richmond resident who posts tips and tricks for his neighbors, including Shepherd’s contact information, to his website StopRichmondBurglary.org.
Over the last few years, Dietrich has become a kind of “block captain” in the neighborhood around his home off 17th Avenue and Geary Boulevard: “Everybody calls me when something seems off,” he says. Yet reporting these break-ins to the San Francisco Police Department hasn’t paid off much, which he attributes to his local station being swamped with requests for help.
Last week, Dietrich was at his wit’s end.
“The Richmond District has been under siege by home burglars this past week. Dozens of neighbors have had holes drilled in their garage doors, probing for the release latch. Many neighbors have lost expensive bikes, tools, equipment and their peace of mind,” Dietrich railed in a July 11 post on X.
While the Richmond has seen a sharp spike in garage-door burglary attempts in July, it’s not exactly new; Dietrich says there have been a “steady stream” of similar incidents since 2020. What’s different is the brazenness of the attempts, including people drilling into doors during the middle of the day.
Capt. Chris Channing, commanding officer of Richmond Station, told Gazetteer that additional officers, including a “night patrol,” have been sent to the district to try and stop the recent garage burglaries.
Nonetheless, Dietrich and other neighbors continue to struggle with prowling burglars — and in turn, they’ve had better luck using a clever fix like Shepherd’s latch shield, which Dietrich discovered after a neighbor tipped him off last year.
Shepherd was surprised, to say the least, when Dietrich first reached out. Since then, San Francisco has become her most thriving market, even though she’s never run marketing here. She sells her shield for $20 a pop — enough to make a bit of money, but affordable enough for anyone to try.
“Not everyone can afford to install electronics or something elaborate. I feel lucky that Mark found me,” she says.
Her simple tool is a symbol of how San Francisco residents are organizing on a grassroots level, not just to address theft, but also to stave off a feeling of helplessness. Dietrich got motivated while reading stories of break-ins on the social app NextDoor, but wanted to do more than gripe about the incidents. Instead, he began talking one-on-one with neighbors and through his website.
“Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but there’s a lack of creativity,” Dietrich says. “There’s a lot of good-natured people out there. We need to connect.”
That’s how he met Ken Wicker, 61, who offers Richmond residents an additional level of protection beyond Shepherd’s latch shield. Wicker sells and installs the “Surelock” deadbolt system, which uses a motorized lever to mechanically secure garage doors. The tool costs $130 to buy and $70 to install, which these days is usually done by his 15-year-old son, Quinn. (They’ve dubbed the informal business “Surelock Homes.”) They’ll also install Shepherd’s shield for just $50 more.
He and Dietrich have heard from a number of residents who say that the security tools have helped turn back burglars, even if they drilled holes.
“I have barely even scratched the surface on the number of garages that could use this, and I’ve probably installed over 200 of these things in the Richmond already,” Wicker says. “There are plenty more people who could use the help.”
Dietrich is quick to say that he is opposed to “vigilantism,” and doesn’t want to see his neighbors intervening and getting hurt. Instead, the key is a strategy of observation, communication and accountability to his block: “We’re eyeballs and ideas,” he concludes.
And if he notices that your emergency release latch is accessible from the outside? Well, he’s got a lady in Kansas who can fix that.
