View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > October > 21
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Crime shifts into high gear
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A woman called and demanded we enforce the noise ordinance on the news helicopters that fly over head between 3 - 7 p.m. I didn’t call her back because I wasn’t in the best of moods and how can you talk to someone like that without letting some well-placed sarcasm out? It was one of those weeks where people were calling us for strange reasons.
Did you know that dogs biting folks is a legit reason to call the cops but dogs humping them isn’t?
Street robberies are up. For those of you in the food-delivery business, take heart to this: The number of robberies of food delivery drivers is up. The most common scenario is this: A fake order is placed to an apartment complex. The bad guys, usually two, are in a vacant apartment or hiding around the corner from a vacant apartment. They jump the driver and take the cash and sometimes the pizza.
Most of the times the age of the bad guys are in the area of late teens to early twenties. Don’t carry too much cash (although meth-heads will shoot you for ten bucks) and although it’s probably difficult to do, your chances are better they’ll abort the robbery if you show up with a second employee.
Some pizza delivery polices include meeting the customer at a public place when they live in high-crime areas.
Another trade taking a hit during this pseudo-sort-of-recession is the landscaping business. Thefts of landscaping equipment are up including stolen landscaping trucks. The fact that drivers are leaving the keys in them isn’t helping much. Many times they steal the truck, drive it to a remote area, strip the equipment, and leave the truck. Here’s a hint: Don’t leave the (%#$*&)ing keys under the floor mat. Other times, they steal the equipment while the workers are in the yard working. This stuff gets sold later on.
The GPS going rate is about $40 on the street. That’s not bad for a $300 Garmin. Laptops are still often stolen and unfortunately there’s an AR-15 out there we’d like back please! Don’t put things in the trunk of the car after you arrive at wherever you’re going. These crooks who specialize in parking lot thefts will sit and watch from their cars. They see someone get out and put a purse in the trunk and there is the target. At least give it some thought.
There are some who have disengaged the trunk release button so that you can’t get into the trunk other than with the key or forcing it.
What else? Sadly enough, there are more honest people doing dishonest things. I’m sure some of it is economy-driven but, for instance, in shoplifting cases, we see a lot of people with no prior arrests stealing from retail stores like Target, Lowes’ and so on. (By the way, Target is excellent in catching shoplifters. They triple any other retail store in arrests.)
Anyway, the things people are stealing aren’t necessities. Just luxuries they paid for in the past but now can’t afford them. Dude, life goes on without an iPod.
Be careful and take stock in what you have. Empty the car at night because breaking into garages isn’t uncommon during the wee hours. Just think a bit about your house and car and really, the goal is to make it difficult. You can’t necessarily build a fort but you can make it hard enough for the bad guy to decide to hit somewhere else. I don’t know what to tell you about the ($@&#$^)ing helicopters!
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