Walking the beat, another way to be proactive

In today's world, a road deputy's office is in his patrol car. They patrol the streets, the neighborhoods, and respond to calls all from their patrol vehicle.

Calls are dispatched and responded to faster now than before, and a single patrol officer can respond to more calls over a larger area than ever before.

In the early days of law enforcement it was common to see an officer "walking the beat." In some of our larger cities this is still done. In areas like ours however, there is much more distance needing to be covered than what a foot patrol could ever accomplish. Yet, there is still room for just a little.

This last summer we talked about vehicle thefts and the surprising statistics on how many of these thefts from autos were from unlocked cars.

When we hear of a burglary, we often assume that someone has broken into a residence or business to deprive the owner of their property. Sadly, we find the same case is often true of a building or residence as with the vehicles.

The door is unlocked and the soon-to-be burglar can simply walk into premises. We have talked before about keeping some lights on at night and the benefits of having a burglar alarm, but there is always going to be that one time the door was left open or unlocked by mistake.

Deputies check for broken windows, suspicious people, and open doors when doing their patrol checks, but pro-active policing is attempting to prevent crime before it happens, not just investigating after. With the beginning of this year, we are bringing back an old tradition in law enforcement of "walking the beat." We are arranging schedules for deputies throughout the night hours of the week to walk the business areas in our county and check for unlocked doors as well as anything else that could be a security risk to a business.

We also want businesses to know when we are there and if we found anything that would concern the owner, so a "Business Security Check" card will be placed in the door with the date, time, and the deputy's badge number that did the check. Anything the deputy found that would need to be brought to the owner's attention will also be written on the card.

Proactive: serving to prepare for, intervene in, or control an expected occurrence or situation, especially a negative or difficult one; anticipatory: proactive measures against crime.

If you have a business that is located outside of a town in Vernon County please give us a call, so we can add you to our list of business checks.

Business check requests can be made by calling 417 283-4400.

There may be someone out there, always looking for a crime to commit, but I will see to it there is always someone out there looking for a person who is committing a crime.