Laura DiCarlo
There is some reorganization going on within the police department, and they are moving to a new "bureau concept" in which they are centralizing the detectives and giving them longer hours so that investigations can begin sooner and be more effective. We are still the central west area of command - the reorganization just allows easier movement of officers where needed.
Due the new system it may be a bit cumbersome to continue quarterly forums, so they asked for suggestions about how we want future public meetings to be conducted. Officer AJ Rodriguez will continue as our DR, but we have lost Kelly LaHood. Dana Munguia has been added, and her phone number is 974-5440. Officer Rodriguez's is 974-4527.
Many things were discussed last night as the format was more audience questions rather than police presentation, but the main point that we should all remember was to hide our belongings (never leave them on the seat of a car, for example), we should have serial numbers recorded for identification of our possessions, and we should take pictures as well. If there are no identifiers on our belongings it is very hard to recover them. They just arrested someone who was responsible for 88 burglary cases, so they said we may see stats go down now that this man has been caught.
I asked about our crime numbers in Allandale and the response was that Allandale is still considered quiet and very low in terms of crime. West campus has been a "hot spot" for them but is much better after a recent initiative, and a current "hot spot" is Research/Burnet/McCann area. They encouraged residents to contact city council members about problems with the homeless because the police can't really do anything.
Thanks! For more information about the forum or if you are interested in becoming a block captain, please contact me at lhdicarlo@yahoo.com or 323-6929.
-Laura DiCarlo
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