Hickory Park Crime Prevention Meeting

Over one hundred local residents attended a crime prevention meeting at Hickory Park in Newbury Park on February 7th. The meeting was called after local residents declared they had had enough after a recent rash of vehicle and residential break-ins.

Ventura County Sheriffs Senior Deputy Beauvais, police advisor to the 92 local Nextdoor.com beats and head of the Volunteers in Policing for the Sheriffs Department, was on hand to lend advice and insight into local crime trends and ways the residents can be more proactive in their role in crime prevention.

Beauvais praised the city of Thousand Oaks for being the safest city in California and number four in the nation. So why would burglars want to target this area? “Because you guys have nice stuff, they want your stuff.”

Where do these burglars come from? Beauvais said that crime trends show that people committing the residential burglaries have almost exclusively come from Los Angeles, while people committing the vehicle burglaries are usually someone from the neighborhood.

Since October, the Sheriff’s Department has taken reports for 17 burglaries, two of which have been residential, in the Hickory Park neighborhood. The 15 other burgs were to vehicles. The majority of the vehicle burglaries occurred after residents left their doors unlocked. The others occurred after a window was broken to take items left in plain view.

“Lock your doors, “ and “I don’t leave anything in my car I’m not prepared to lose,” is what Beauvais lives by when it comes to securing his vehicle. Burglars want the quick score, and it is our responsibility to reduce the desirability of the target.

Some of the additional tips Beauvais advised included:

• Vehicle burglaries were usually occurring between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning
• Favorite targets left in plain view include purses, iPad’s, and cell phone chargers
• Using your key fob to lock your doors, and double check before going inside your residence

Residential burglaries are sophisticated crimes far less frequent than vehicle burglaries but more personal and potentially a lot more dangerous. Beauvais outlined tactics that home burglars use when locating targets of opportunity.

A popular tactic is people walking house to house doing door knocks during daytime hours when people are at work. When people answer they will make up a story of looking for a lost dog, or posing as a cleaning or maintenance service looking for work. Houses with no answer become potential targets with burglars looking to gain access through the backyard.

Stay at home moms concerned about opening the door to answer these door knocks asked for advice for what they should do. Beauvais suggested staying behind the locked door, calling out “Not interested”, and following up with a phone call to the Sheriffs.

Regarding residential burglary, Beauvais suggested the following:

• Installing multiple surveillance cameras. Cameras are cheap, come in HD, can access the internet, and are easy to operate.
• Walking your dog. This gets people out in their neighborhood where they can easily and discreetly monitor local activity.
• Looking out for each other. In acting as police contact for the 92 local Nextdoor.combeats, Sr. Dep. Beauvais advises tight networks of neighbors to local crime news and trends. Neighbors are free to post in the forums about suspicious and unusual activity in helping look out for each other.
• Vacation house checks. The local Sheriffs offer services where they will come by and check your house while you are gone on vacation. They walk around the house and make sure everything is secure.

The Sheriffs Department takes a proactive stand in attempting to locate burglars by patrolling our neighborhoods as well. Beauvais said his favorite tactic in looking for burglars at night is to turn all his lights off, roll down the windows and creep down the streets at 15 miles per hour. This allows a Deputy to quickly pop up on subjects who may be breaking the law.

Finally people unsure with whether or not they should report certain suspicious or unusual activity to the Sheriff’s department received the philosophy of the Sheriffs Department. Beauvais said, “If you’re wondering if you should call or not to call, go ahead and call. You can always cancel the call.” Beauvais went on to say, “This is what you pay us for.”  “If you call, we will come. We are happy to come.”

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department takes community involvement and public relations very seriously. If you need to call them, they can be reached by simply dialing “9-1-1”, or by contacting the 24/7 non-emergency number where a live dispatcher can always be reached, at (805) 654-9511.

Categorised in: Breaking News

This post was written by safetyfadmin