All posts in the topic Crime (Short link)
Summary
- There are 6 posts — by 4 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Tim Erickson at 2007 Mar 12 21:46 UTC
My wife and I live in a three-building apartment complex in Roseville. We
returned from our Christmas weekend travels to find that numerous thefts took
place while we were gone.
The thief (or thieves) took items such as a riding lawn mower, push mower, leaf
blower and other misc. tools from our underground parking area. There are 32
apartments with storage units in common areas in our building alone. The
storage units' deadbolts were all unlocked and anything of value was taken.
I don't know how many police reports were made, but I expect a few dozen
reports were made by residents in all of the buildings.
I would think that this would make the Roseville Police take note and increase
patrols through our poorly designed (for security purposes) parking lot. The
theft problem has continued since Christmas and more police reports have been
filed. I have not seen a single squad car in our lot since the problem began
Sean,
Having served as a former Police Reserve Officer and Mayor of this city, I
can tell you the first and most important thing to do is file the police
reports. Make sure the people there keep filing the police reports. This
provides the department hard statistics and shows that there may be greater
problems than the norm in your area, or for apartment complexes in general.
I cannot tell you how many times people called me and said that they were
not happy about speeding cars in their neighborhood or kids out after
curfew, or other forms of crime. I would then ask how many of these
incidents did they report to the police department, and they would reply
either one of two things. It was either, "oh, I don't want to bother them",
or "oh, I just reported this last problem, but none of the others." The
police department cannot address what they don't know anything about.
As far as the response from the police department for an increase of
patrols, the question has to be asked as to how anyone would know if they
haven't already stepped up patrols? The department does not have the
resources to park a car at every location where a possible crime could be
committed. That's just the nature of the system. How many times would a
patrol car have to drive through an area for the criminals to go away?
Maybe 20 times a day? Once the patrols went back down to normal, then the
crime would return.
The first line of defense against crime is not the police department; the
first line of defense is personal responsibility. The police cannot be
everywhere at every time. The people in your complex need to take steps to
make your location uninviting to criminals.
One example of personal responsibility being the first line of defense
involves the city's longstanding problem of people breaking into parked cars
at Central Park. The criminals watch people getting out of their cars and
they count the number of women leaving the car, and the number of purses.
If two women get out and there are no purses that leave with them, that
means that two purses are sitting in the car. If you leave items like cell
phones sitting within plain view, you are asking for trouble. Remember that
criminals don't want to work any harder than the rest of us. If they see
two cars sitting next to each other and both have goodies like cell phones
and purses sitting in them within plain public view, and they only have time
to break into one of the cars, many times they will choose the car that is
unlocked. If you make it easy for them, you will get robbed. Don't get the
idea that just because you are leaving your car for a few minutes to pick up
your kid at the daycare center, that a criminal won't have time to break
your window and grab something. This sort of crime happens all the time.
The solution to your problem is to get some of your neighbors together for a
meeting with your landlord to talk about what you all can do to address this
problem. Call up the Police Department and talk with the Chief, Captain, or
Lt. and ask them if they can send someone over to provide your group some
advice on how you can lessen the possibilities of becoming a victim. The
solution is within your own grasp. Good luck.
John M. Kysylyczyn
3083 Victoria Street, Roseville, MN 55113
E-mail: <email obscured>
Home office: (651) 484-1384
Cell: (651) 398-5337
K Solutions LLC, owner
Mayor of Roseville, MN 2000-2004
www.KSolutionsLLC.com
Something strange happened yesterday and I wanted to post a message to the
discussion board and just ask: What would you do?
Yesterday, I worked from home (I'm a computer nerd) and my wife is temporarily
(hopefully) unemployed, so we were both home. When my wife opened the garage
and prepared to drive to the school to pick up our kids, she noticed a couple
of suspicious acting strangers in front of the next door neighbor's house.
Upon backing out of the garage, both people looked at our car, immediately got
into their cars (two separate vehicles) and sped off in different directions.
The one car just so happened to go the same direction as my wife.
As my wife followed the one car, they drove somewhat erratically west on County
Road B, then a "quick" change in direction south on Lexington with no signal
(again the same direction my wife was planning on going.)
There were a couple of other instances going south on Lexington where the car
signaled and then did not turn, then a quick turn with no signal.
So, the pattern of behavior seemed strange? Perhaps it is the fact that we are
a bit hyper sensitive because someone broke into my sister-in-law's place up in
Shoreview a week or so ago in the middle of the afternoon while she was away
only for a couple of hours to run errands.
We are a pretty close-knit neighborhood. I think we all know most of the
comings-n-goings of neighbors, friends, and families. So, what DO YOU do when
you get that uneasy feeling or instinct that someone is acting unusual or
suspicious?
On Mar 8, 2007, at 10:25 AM, Ken Yokanovich wrote:
> Yesterday, I worked from home (I'm a computer nerd) and my wife is
> temporarily (hopefully) unemployed, so we were both home. When my
> wife opened the garage and prepared to drive to the school to pick
> up our kids, she noticed a couple of suspicious acting strangers in
> front of the next door neighbor's house.
>
> Upon backing out of the garage, both people looked at our car,
> immediately got into their cars (two separate vehicles) and sped
> off in different directions. The one car just so happened to go
> the same direction as my wife.
Seems to me, that at a minimum you would want to tell the next door
neighbor. You might even try to spread the word to other neighbors -
that everyone should be on guard.
I think, that this might even be worth reporting to the police.
While, the police probably can't do anything about this particular
incident - they can keep a record of it and if additional suspicious
reports pop up, they might be able to take some precautionary actions.
Anyone else have any advice?
Any word on what the Roseville police recommend in these situations?
Do they want to be notified?
Please - post your message to the group at:
<email obscured>
Thanks,
Tim Erickson
Temporary Forum Manager
The Roseville Police Department would be interested to have a description of
the incident, poeple and vehicles that they were driving. Who knows, it might
not have been anything to worry about. On the other hand... I'd report it and
let Roseville PD make the choice to do something or not.
Chief Carol Sletner asked me to post the following response to our
discussion about Crime!
Thanks to Chief Sletner for the response!
- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
Mr. Erickson,
Thank you for the follow-up questions reference the incident Mr.
Yokanovich describes.
The Roseville Police Department is very interested in incidents that
appear suspicious in nature.
I would also encourage neighborhoods to "spread the word" when they
see or hear anything that appears out of the ordinary. If your block
has a Neighborhood Watch Group, individuals should report the
activity to the police department first and then to their NWG block
captain. For more information on Neighborhood Watch Groups, please
contact Community Relations Coordinator Heather Darby at 651-792-7209.
The PD does keep track of incidents of this nature and many times the
gathered pieces of information add up to an eventual arrest.
The Police Department wants to be notified on any situation that
seems out of the ordinary. We want to provide our citizens with a
proactive rather than a reactive approach to crime.
So even if in doubt.........please call us. Call either 911
emergency if the situation is "in progress" or call the non-emergency
number at 651-484-1700 if there is lag time between incident and
discovery. We would much rather investigate the situation at hand
when the incident is still fresh (in both evidence and recollections
by witnesses) then get the information at a later time.
Chief Carol Sletner