Crime Things

Some recent crime things.

1. I received this email:

I know you talk about crime prevention on your blog so I thought I would tell you about an incident that happened today. This afternoon, shortly after 5pm, there was a green Mercury mini-van parked in front of our house. We live on North Street, between Florida and Central. I had not noticed it at that point but a neighbor stopped by with the make of the car and it's license plate (New York tag). There was a single mid to late 40's latino male, about 5'6, medium build. The car was parked across the street from our house yesterday for a while and neither my neighbor nor I have ever seen the car before yesterday. The suspicious part is that as soon as my neighbor came by, the guy started packing up. The other suspicious thing was, he had the jack out in front on the car. There were no flat tires and the car wasn't off the ground, just had the jack pushed under the front end. As soon as he saw me look out my window, he put the jack in the car and started up and drove away. I didn't see any oil stains or indication of any leaks and the car had no trouble starting. Just wanted people in the neighborhood to be on the lookout. It could be legit or it could be something else. We just got a strange feeling about it

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I think strange, funny or odd feelings are important things to pay attention to. Things that are out of the ordinary always bear paying attention to. Sometimes it is nothing or something innocent but sometimes it is not. Some of these things I report to police and some I just note mentally or write down. Sometimes I just watch a little bit longer to see how things play out.

Some of the more common words in my Neighborhood Watch vocabulary are suspicious vehicle, suspicious behavior/activity, or suspicious person. I call the police when anything meets that criteria. How do you define suspicious? Well generally it is self evident.

Note when you call police to report suspicious behavior use the words suspicious in your call. If I called the police and just said there is some man parked across the street and I would like you to check it out they give me some resistance. However, if I said there is some suspicious activity occurring across the street, then they will respond. It also helps, I'm for mew to identify myself as a neighborhood watch member, as it gives me more credibility. (By the way, always ask the police operator for the event number. That way you can be assured your call will be logged and dispatched.)

2. Another email item I received, this from a Neighborhood Watch Coordinator:

Yesterday about 3 PM there was a 5’8”-5’9” black male wearing a white t-shirt and housing jean shorts. He was skinny with short hair. He spoke with a Jamaican accent. He was walking N on 13th toward Crawford. He asked one of the female neighbors who was walking her dog where he could catch the 9. She told him to go back to Sligh and turn right. He continued toward her and began exposing himself. She had a large and, at time, not nice dog. The man kept eyeing the dog and finally ran S on 13th. He did not follow the directions given to him about how to catch the 9.

We had this problem several years ago, but here we go again. If anyone has seen this man, please call the TPD at 231-9254 or District 2 at 931-6500.

It's too bad the dog did not play tug of war with the guy.