Precinct 5 PENS October 2020
Welcome to this month’s PENS, Police Email Notification System bulletin. This monthly bulletin is brought to you from the Cobb County Police, Precinct 5 Criminal Investigations Unit (CIU5) and is designed to keep you aware of safety alerts and crime trends in your area and measures you can take to keep you and your family safe.
Upcoming Events
Annual Cool Cars and Cops Car Show
Hosted by the Cobb County Police Community Affairs Unit
When: 11/1/2020 from 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Where:
Cobb County Safety Village
1220 Al Bishop Dr
arietta, GA 30008
Enjoy a large car show, a Touch-a-Truck experience, a kids costume contest, prizes, and food trucks!
The Community Affairs Unit is looking for club and individual car enthusiasts to display ALL types of cars. (Classics, Exotics, Tuners, Projects). There is a $10.00 entry fee per vehicle. All fees raised support SWAT Santa hosted by the Community Affairs Unit.
Contact Raymond.Granell-Reyes@CobbCounty.org or Larry.White@CobbCounty.org to reserve a car spot or if you have questions.
Public Safety Topic of the Month
Trick or Treat Tips
Make sure your kids dress up safely
- Make sure costumes are flame retardant so children aren't in danger near burning jack-o-lanterns.
- Keep costumes short to prevent trips, falls, and other bumps in the night.
- Try make-up instead of a mask. Masks can be hot and uncomfortable, and they can obstruct a child's vision--it’s a dangerous thing when kids are crossing streets and going up and down steps.
- Make sure kids wear light colors or put reflective tape on their costumes.
Make trick-or-treating trouble free
- Trick-or-treaters should always be in groups so they aren't a tempting target. Parents should accompany young children.
- Exercise extreme caution when driving a vehicle. Be on the alert for excited youngsters, whose vision may be obscured by masks darting out into traffic.
- Remind kids to keep a safe distance from moving cars.
- Cross only at street corners, never between parked cars, and never diagonally across an intersection.
Current Crime Trends
Entering Autos
Ladies and Gentlemen, our current crime trends continue to be Entering Autos. In addition to overnight break-ins, we have seen an increase of daytime vehicle break-ins at local parks and gyms. Some of these break-ins have also taken place at Kennesaw Mountain National Park. While people are out on the walking trails, their vehicles have been broken into.
If any credit/debit cards are taken, the suspects immediately go to local retail stores and spend as much money as they can. Once you notice that any credit/debit cards are missing, call and have them canceled/frozen.
PLEASE remove all valuables especially guns from your vehicles every time you park and leave the vehicle. Also double-check that ALL vehicle doors are locked.
Pine Straw Scam
How the Scam Works:
Workers approach homeowners and explain they are in the area working, have extra pine straw, then offer to sell and spread the pine straw for approximately $4.00 per bale. Depending on the size of the yard, the agreement is to spread approximately 10-50 bales of pine straw.
At some point, the workers contact the homeowner and say that they will take more pine straw than anticipated to complete the job. The homeowner agrees with the assumption it will only take a few more bales to complete the job.
When the workers finish the job, they advise the homeowner they installed approximately 4 times the bales the homeowner anticipated. The workers then try to collect several thousands of dollars for the work they claim they did. In most of the cases, the homeowners start negotiating a rate higher than agreed upon initially, but lower than the workers are asking simply to get them to leave.
What to Do:
- Use extreme caution when dealing with walk-up salespeople.
- Ask them for a business card or website so that you can research the business before they start the work.
- If possible, obtain the business name, employee names, phone numbers, and tag numbers.
- Check for a Cobb County Business License and Better Business Bureau review.
- If it is a verbal agreement, record the conversation, agree on the specific work that you want to be done, and agree on a specific final price before any work starts.
- Trying to save a few dollars is not worth it. Use a local reputable company that is established, licensed, and insured.
Cobb County Camera Registry
The Cobb County Police Camera Registration program is a police/community video partnership that operates on a voluntary basis with homeowners, neighborhoods and business owners who own private video surveillance systems. We encourage both businesses and residents to register their cameras online by completing the form below.
This program is intended to let our officers know where cameras are active in the county in case a crime occurs. It is not intended for active surveillance, and officers will not have direct access to homeowners' cameras. Those who register a camera will be contacted if a crime occurs in the vicinity of that camera.
Information provided by residents and businesses will be maintained in a secure database.
If you have not already signed up to receive the monthly PENS updates, please subscribe. Feel free to forward this e-mail to your HOA members and local businesses.
PENS is also sending out bulletins and alerts through its partnership with Nextdoor.com. Discover if your neighborhood is already signed up so you may join. If not, they will provide you with the necessary information.
Stay Safe,
Det. Lieutenant J.B Wade
Det. Sergeant W.R. Pettitt
Criminal Investigation Unit Pct. 5
4640 Dallas Highway
Powder Springs, GA 30127
(770) 499-4578