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.

Public Safety Topic of The Month

Safety Tips for Summer Vacation Crime Prevention

Never advertise you are leaving town: Don’t broadcast that you and your family will be away. Wait until after your trip to share updates and photos on social media. Remind your children not to Facebook, blog, or tweet your family’s absence from home.

Create the illusion of occupancy: While away cancel delivery of mail and newspaper or arrange for a neighbor to pick them up.

Lights: Put inside and outside lights on a timer to establish a look of occupancy. A timer on your TV– so it’s on when you’d normally be watching TV is also a good idea.

Lock all windows and doors: Keep valuables away from windows, lower blinds and close curtains so passers-by can’t view these items. Remember, a significant amount of crime can be deterred if homeowners do not create easy opportunities for the criminal element.

Garage: Keep your car locked and the windows up even if its parked in the garage, and take your keys with you. If your house is broken into, there is no need to provide the thief with a car. You may also want to un-plug your garage door opener and lock the garage door while out of town.

Trust a Neighbor: Make sure a dependable neighbor watches your house, has a house key, and has your cell number in case of any home emergency. Also make sure your neighbor has a way to shut off any alarms.

Utilities: It’s always a good idea to turn back the temperature of your water heater, shut off the water to your washing machine (washing machine hose breaks are at the top of the list when it comes to home damage costs).

CURRENT CRIME TRENDS

Entering Autos

Ladies and Gentlemen, our current crime trends continue to be Entering Autos. The bulk of the Entering Autos are taking place overnight and early in the morning. The majority of all the Entering Autos have been UNLOCKED vehicles with valuables including guns left inside. PLEASE remove all valuables especially guns from your vehicles every time you park and leave the vehicle. During these Entering Autos, we had several vehicles that were also stolen. The perpetrators were able to steal the vehicles because victims had left their Key Fobs inside the vehicles. Even if you hide the Key Fob it still allows the perpetrator to hit the push-button start and leave with the vehicle. Remove all keys and key fobs before leaving your vehicle. Also, double check that ALL vehicle doors are locked.

If you observe someone breaking into vehicles do not approach them and immediately call 911. From a safe place provide 911 with an accurate description of the suspects, involved vehicles, and what direction the suspect is going. NO property is worth getting hurt over.

**Update**

The recent increase in entering autos incidents, all have been unlocked vehicles. The vehicles have been parked in the driveways of residences. Videos from home security systems showed the suspects walking up to vehicles and checking the door handles. If the doors were unlocked, they entered the vehicle, rummaged through any contents, and took whatever valuables they were interested in. In one video, the suspect even opened and checked the trunk of a sedan. Their objective is to steal as much property from unlocked vehicles as possible without being detected so there are no reports of broken windows. If a vehicle was locked, they moved on to another vehicle. This is the most common practice of an entering auto thief.

No one can guarantee that a thief will not break out your vehicle window but incident data shows that forced entry to a vehicle’s window usually correlates with valuables inside the vehicle that are visible from outside the vehicle.

Again, remove all valuables from your parked vehicles, especially firearms. Lock your doors, even when parked at your residence. These two practices statistically reduces your chances of being an entering auto victim.

***Update #2***

There have been many arrests in the recent entering auto cases. The cases included multiple counties and jurisdictions. The perpetrators consisted of some young adults and juveniles who were responsible for many thefts. These perpetrators were operating in “crews” primarily using stolen vehicles from previous thefts as their means of transportation. These stolen vehicles were stolen because they were left unlocked, and the spare key fob were inside the vehicles.

The main target or “ringleader” was also apprehended and was charged with many counts.

Since the arrests, Entering Autos case have drastically decreased in the PCT 5 area. Eventually the crimes will begin to spike once again and leaving our vehicles unlocked makes it easy for them. Stay vigilant in protecting your property.

What You Can Do to Prevent Theft

Burglary Prevention

• Lock your doors, including the one from the garage.
• Keep garage doors closed--check before bed every night.
• Use motion sensor-activated lighting.
• Use surveillance cameras.

Entering Auto Prevention

• Lock your vehicles and remove items of value and items that appear to contain valuables.
• If you can’t keep them with you, secure your valuables in the trunk before reaching your location.
• Keep your vehicle locked and your purse or wallet on your person while fueling at the gas station.

Postal Theft

• Use anti-theft mailboxes with a special locking system.
• Use security cameras.
• Do not raise the mail flag.
• Do not send cash, checks, or anything that has credit card information.

Remember to CALL 911 to report any suspicious persons or activity. If you see something, say something!

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  T.M. Fuller
Det. Sergeant J.T. Rainwater
Cobb County Police Department
Criminal Investigation Unit Pct. 5
4640 Dallas Highway
Powder Springs, GA 30127
(770) 499-4578