Edgemont Park HA

February 4th Crime Watch Meeting Minutes

Feb 11, 2002

Eleven members of the neighborhood attended the Crime Watch meeting on February 4th at the Lakewood Library. Officer Richard Hunt spoke to us about general crime prevention and patterns in the neighborhood. Here's a recap of his comments:

*Maintain low hedges in front of windows
*Install flood lights with motion detectors, keep outside lights on
*Install alarms, hook up to network. Alarm fees rose from $25 to $50 in last year. 3 false alarms=ticket
*Know your neighbors
*When out of town, have someone pick up mail and newspapers, give neighbor a key
*Watch your lawnmowers--high theft item
*Mark items with Social Security numbers for identification
*Report suspicious persons to the police (don't worry how often)
*If you are burglarized and have requested police to come out, don't touch anything until police have cleared
*Provide your name to the police when reporting a crime. This oftentimes means the difference between an officer following up on a crime and not. If no name, officer has no one to talk to and doesn't come out.
*DPD has evolved into becoming a report-taking organization because they do not have the manpower to send officers out to every call. Non-violent calls Thursday night through Sunday morning often have long wait times.
*We have a lot of juvenile crimes in the neighborhood (stolen cars, car theft) and these kids go in and out of jail quickly with little punishment.
*Hondas manufactured in 1998 or older are very easy to steal (easy to break into, easy to hot-wire).
*Homeless people visibility usually goes in cycles: they're cleared out of a neighborhood or arrested at the same time, come back around the same time.
*Greenville Ave is a magnet for homeless people (close to downtown) so we get some of the traffic.
*There's been a high number of robberies on Columbia, Carroll, and Fitzhugh, mainly illegal immigrants with cash on them.
*Report, report, report and leave your name

I'll be working with Officer Michelle Thomas at DPD to get periodic crime watch statistics and distribute summary emails to you. Please help me expand this distribution list by notifying me of any other email addresses of neighbors.

Thanks!
Betsy Evans
6208 Oram
mailto:betsy.e.evans@bankofamerica.com