Below is an article a community in San Rafael, CA that by using this app and a strong Neighborhood Watch they are directly effecting crime in their community.
We will be posting an interview with Gordon Jones with Guardian Watch a cell phone app that allows communities to better communicate with each other and EMS personnel on what going on in their area the website is:
http://www.facebook.com/GuardianWatch
Also Check out:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001441607142 – Flores Park NW
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rialto-Residents-for-Rialto-Fire-Department/145275045567795
http://www.facebook.com/groups/309058217201/ – Residents for Rialto PD
http://www.facebook.com/RialtoPD
After five months and three community meetings, the Terra Linda and Marinwood Neighborhood Watch Program is helping officers solve crime, according to one of the group’s organizers.
Since the creation of the neighborhood watch program in December 2011, the number of calls dispatchers received has increased and homeowners are feeling safer, said organizer John Buckley.
“At our first meeting, there was a sense that everyone was in crisis mode,” he said. “But now we can tell it’s working.”
Dispatchers at Tuesday’s meeting told attendees that the neighborhood watch group’s calls had a hand in helping to catch three suspected burglars in early April. Two Terra Linda High School students and one graduate were arrested on suspicion of breaking in to the school’s storage container where they stock candy and snacks for athletic events.
During their interviews, the three confessed to several other burglaries in the Terra Linda, Marinwood and Santa Venetia areas, totaling seven incidents.
“Essentially we helped solve seven crimes,” Buckley said.
In one incident, the teens broke in to Buckley’s neighbor’s house but when the homeowner returned, they stealthily fled after stashing a laptop and vodka in the yard. Once they confessed, they returned with officers to the house to locate the items.
Terra Linda and Marinwood neighbors first began their watch group in December after a wave of home burglaries in the area. At a meeting in February, retired San Rafael police officer Tom Boyd described these neighborhood’s as a “burglar’s paradise” because the properties are surrounded by open space and trusting residents are making it easy for crime with unlocked vehicles and open garage doors.
The neighborhood watch’s website has been tracking incidents in the area to keep people informed.
According to the website, a neighbor came returned to her home on Golden Hinde on Feb. 14 and found that the front door was pried open by a crowbar. Her Wii, iPad, iTouch, passports, several credit cards and other items were stolen.
The site also lists a failed burglary in Marinwood on March 9, where suspects broke into a locked garage side door. When they discovered the 91-year-old homeowner inside, they cut the power and fled. In March, a man was arrested on suspicion of two gas station armed burglaries in Terra Linda. In one case, a Union 76 Station clerk attempted to fight the suspect and was struck in the head several times with the weapon.
Although the meetings’ attendance dwindled since the first in December (the first meeting drew over 200 people when this week’s drew 35), the website has served the community well, Buckley said. Some of the content garnered as much as 6,000 visitors, 12,000 page views and now over 250 people have signed up for email updates.
“It just shows that the campaign is really working,” he said.
The next neighborhood meeting will be in the fall and will address emergency preparedness.
rialtonow 