Thousand Oaks City Watch Alert - February 25, 2009

Here is the latest "City Watch" alert from Deputy Jim DeSoto of the Thousand Oaks Police Department. If you are interested in receiving these updates directly from him via email, click here for more information.

Crime Fighters,

The Thousand Oaks Police Department, especially your patrol officers, thank you for your efforts in preventing crime. Our dispatchers and patrol officers are seeing an increase in suspicious person(s) and suspicious vehicle(s) calls for service. Because of your calls, we are able to contact people, identify them, and do the important task of taking preventative crime measures.

In one recent suspicious vehicle call, two people were contacted. One person had misdemeanor warrants and the other person was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance. Frequently, people who use or are addicted to illicit drugs commit property crimes to help them through their dependence. In addition, most crimes that are committed have a connection to either drug or alcohol use. That is the reason your officers are constantly looking to identify and arrest those who are under the influence of controlled substances (UI) and those who are UI while operating a vehicle. Typically, when chemical dependence is involved, many other crimes are involved besides being UI and a potential of harm to others exists whenever drugs and alcohol are involved. Please never believe that no one else is affected when someone is under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol use. We all are affected in some manner.

In another suspicious vehicle call, the officers were unable to establish a crime but the person was contacted, identified, and is now known to the officers and detectives. This is a great deterrence to any future crimes that this person may have been contemplating.

The cities of Fillmore and Ojai also have a City Watch e-mail system. Their participants are just as involved in crime and quality of life issues just as you are involved. Their readers also call in matters suspicious in nature and many good arrests have been made as a result. As an example, the attached press release from Ojai concerns a citizen calling in a suspicious vehicle and as a result two people were arrested.

Our local City Watchers often e-mail me with information about crimes that I forward to detectives. Detectives are very appreciative of the information and the last City Watcher that e-mailed me helped to close out a violent crimecase.All your e-mails and telephone calls are important and they lead to great teamwork and better arrests.

I attached two suggestions that I received from City Watchers and they wanted to pass on the information for everyone’s benefit. Thank you Susan and Ed. Finally, I read an interesting article on CNN.com regarding neighborhood watch groups being the frontlines in combating crime especially in these tough economic times. Please read the article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/24/neighborhood.watch.economy/index.html

Take care and keep those suspicious person and vehicle calls coming,

Jim (DeSoto)