Reporting Crimes

You should always report a crime even when you believe there is no hope that the offender will be caught. Keep in mind that most offenders repeat their actions.  Even though your information by itself may not seem useful, it may provide the missing link to make an arrest when combined with past or future information that is provided by other individuals.  While it may be frustrating to not see any action being taken, residents are often unaware of behind the scenes investigations or undercover police operations. Any help you give in solving a case may help someone else avoid being a victim of the same person. Taking the time to file an official report is the only way that assures your report becomes part of the official crime statistics that help to determine the number of police that support your community. Also, if we (the community) don't let the police know what problems are going on in the community, we cannot expect them to work with us to solve them.

A Northside Case Study demonstrates the importance of formally reporting even petty crimes. 
A string of plant thefts began occurring in Northside during the Spring of 2003.  A COP member became aware of the thefts and began informally keeping track of the victims. When the number of reports had exceeded 10, the COP member approached the police and asked what they were doing because these thefts had residents upset. It was at that point that it was learned that the police only had a couple of the thefts on file and really weren’t aware of the full extent of the crimes.  Via e-mail communications, COP soon learned there had been more than 25 different plant thefts.  Learning of this, the Northside neighborhood officer had each of the victims file a formal police report. Having confirmed the substantial accumulative value of the thefts, a detective was assigned to the case and soon had the thief under arrest.  Not only this, it was learned through confessions that the same thief had been involved in numerous other thefts of store merchandise.

This site is best viewed with screen resolution 1024 by 768 pixels