ATM robber caught (on TV, no less)

Robber shows up to rob people at the same ATM. TV crew is filming, catches robbery on tape.

You can see the video in the story here. Check out how the guy approaches the SUV. This is useful info.

Armed Robbery @ ATM

[update - he got caught]


Here's the DMN story. I suspect this was at the Bank of America but haven't listened to the scanner audio yet. If so, this is the place that was hit (in Nov?) by an armed robber who fled on foot and, apparently, was not apprehended.


Here's a link to the release; I didn't see it on COR.net yet.

And here's how to get an application for a CHL (concealed handgun license).

RPD manhunt for robber, Buckingham/Audelia

Happening at the time of this post. DPD Helo (Air One) and DPD ground officers are assisting.


[update @21:23 - the robbery appears to have been a carjacking. Sounds like the scene is winding down.]

NNO followup

Last year I rode a bicycle on every street in my neighborhood; took 2.5hrs. I stopped and talked to everyone I saw outside; two knew it was NNO.

So this year I sat in my front yard in a rocker alongside a card table to hold neighborhood info, Crime Watch info, NNO info, and a dog to keep me company. Saw four couples walking; none knew it was NNO.

It is not clear to me what else COR could do to get the word out on the cheap. I'm not so enamoured with NNO that I'd support buying new hardware for the project. Maybe drag around one of those programmable road signs if we already have one? Leave it at the main entrances to each neighborhood for a few days in Sept next year? Maybe that'd seed the idea at least.

National Night Out is Oct 5

Here's the official RPD page on it.

My plans this year are fairly low-key. Maybe sit in the front yard in a lawn chair, pet the horse, and meet passers-by. Enjoy the Fall temps.

But I'm a little conflicted about NNO. On the upside it's a decent way for neighbors to meet each other. It's an excuse for the more motivated to have a party.

On the downside it seems, on my more cynical days, like one more "feather in my cap" pantomime for COR/RPD brass. Accruing awards for best NNO for any city in a given category, etc.

When the wife and I lived in the Spring Valley Corridor a few years back we made it a point to be seen walking the 'hood almost every night. We called it Nightly Night Out, and did it to make some small stand against the Dallas thugs coming up north to SVC to prey on locals. Hey, punk, if you 'jack my paletero you 'n' me are gonna have a problem. Wifey gotta have that la fresa goodness and I could use el coco.

BTW, if a fire truck swings by your location (and your house is not on fire) be sure to call it a fire apparatus. Apparently that's the PC name these days. But, seriously. How many little kids will be inspired to grow up and ride on a fire apparatus? It's a fire truck to me.

Free VIN etching Sept 9

Richardson Police Department | 140 N. Greenville Ave.

The Richardson Police Department in partnership with the North Texas Auto Theft Task Force and UTD, will be offering free VIN etchings and conducting H.E.A.T. registrations on Friday, September 10, 2010. This is a pre‐National Night Out 2010 event.

Bring your car to UTD at 800 W. Campbell Rd. in Richardson, between 10am and 2pm to have your car’s VIN etched into each window. VIN etching is used to deter auto theft. Car thieves who steal cars for re‐sale or for parts will tend to avoid vehicles that have the glass etched with a VIN. VIN etching reduces the criminal’s profit, associated with replacing a vehicle’s windows and the windows themselves becoming worthless for resale.

The H.E.A.T. (Help End Auto Theft) registration program places a sticker on your vehicle and registers it in a statewide database used by
law enforcement in Texas. H.E.A.T. registration allows Police to stop the vehicle if it is operating between the hours of 1:00am and 5:00am to determine if the driver is the owner. The event is conducted on a first come first serve basis and only takes minutes to complete and is free of charge.

The Richardson Police Department will also be collecting canned food donations for the Network of Community Ministries. If it should rain, the event will be rescheduled and details will be published at a later time.

Contact the Richardson Police Department, Crime Prevention Unit for additional information at 972‐744‐4955.

next Crime Watch Patrol class scheduled

... word has it that the RPD has booked rooms in the Civic Center for the next class, on April 12-13th. The same word further indicates that if a suitable applicant gets their application in now they will likely be scheduled for the April class.

Things to know:

• You must be invited to the classes by RPD (ie, must already have application approved). You can't just show up. Since non-public information is shared with CWP as part of the crime watch effort, background checks and other due diligence is in effect.
  
• Must attend both classes
• After you attend and pass the test you will do one or more "check rides" with your area's CWP coordinator. Then you're active!

[none of this necessarily reflects the opinions of RPD; I'm just a citizen. Do your own fact checking before plunking down your time and effort.]

Faith-based crime prevention conference

RPD is asking for help spreading the word about an unfortunately-named Faith-Based Crime Prevention Conference happening in late March, 2010.

No, it's not a Faith-Based conference and it's definitely not a conference about Faith-based crime. It's a conference about Crime Prevention for Faith-based organizations (ie, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc). The idea is to help institutions get a crime prevention program off the ground or improve the one they've got.

It is one effort in a series of efforts targeting residential areas, apartments, businesses, etc. The target audience seems to be church leadership rather than the laity so make sure your preacher, teacher, imam or rabbi knows about the conference.

COR Radio system needs work?

DMN reports COR may have to update the radio system soon. I can confirm from scanner audio that dispatchers and patrol officers are struggling with dropouts and static issues. The audio of the system is also quite low, but that's probably not a directly related matter.

Makes me wonder what the options are in the$8-10mil range. Currently COR is running an analog EDACS trunked system in the rebanded 800mHz range.

Couldn't go fully APCO25 (digital, for our purposes) for that amount of $$$ I wouldn't think, if Plano is getting 30mil quotes for their (admittedly larger) system. And not in a year and a half timeframe.

Maybe some kind of federal grant money for (wink) interoperability purposes to build a digital infrastructure + a bridge to the existing analog radios, then replace the radios as more $$$ comes along? Maybe move PD/FD to digital first? Or maybe just buy some some new EDACS gear to replace the dying stuff? That might buy us a few more years before going APCO but the numbers above seem high for a scotch tape kind of deal.

Hmmm, maybe it involves running more towers in problem areas? I bet that would be get us in the right money ballpark.

Dunno. Hopefully someone who knows how this stuff works can chime in. I'm just guessing. I suspect the commentary in local scanning groups will be informative and someone will set me straight.

Thanks to Nathan for bringing this to my attention.

RPD brass loves their pretty, shiny medals

While reading today's Richardson Police Department wins accreditation through state program article I was struck by two thoughts, neither of them pleasant:

1. Accreditation programs are, in my experience, either money mills or power plays to control a particular market segment. Or both. You can see the annual fees associated with this particular accreditation program here. $1200/yr isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme, but I'd rather see the money go to improving the LEOs' break room or something instead of funding feathers in leadership's cap.
   
2. It is much, much easier to purchase a wall plaque that says you run your department well than to actually run your department well.

[edit -- note to DMN: please do not conflate "state program" with "statewide program"]

RPD/google crime map tweak

I noticed recently that the RPD crime map looked subtly different but I couldn't figure out how.

Turns out there is a new purple icon that does not appear in the map key to the right. It appears that:

purple icon = pending residential burglary
yellow icon = inactive "Resdiential" (sic) burglary

Perhaps this change was due to harping (mine, among others) that residential burglaries do not get enough detective time and/or Crime Scene attention like commercial burglaries and higher-$$$ thefts do. The existence of a purple icon might signify additional RPD resources being allocated to residential burglaries. Or it could mean something as cynical as brass telling a web jockey to "post all burg-habs as pending for a week then move them to inactive." I hope for the former rather than the latter.

If there were a contact email on that page I'd let them know about the missing purple icon in the key and the "resdiential" typo. But there's not, so I won't. Not that it would make a huge difference. A few months ago their webmaster was emailed that the "Last 6 months | Last 12 Months | Last 18 months" links on the crime listings page all point to the same URL but it's still busted...

Attempted residential burglaries booked as lesser crimes?

This article deals with a bit of a gray area in crime reporting in DPD. This is an important issue because RPD does the same thing, and we should probably think about what it means.

The RPD position is that in some cases the burglary cannot be proven but a lesser charge of criminal mischief or vandalism can be. This seems to be a reasonable position, although I think maybe the prosecutor should be making that call. Maybe the prosecutor[s] have already given a rule-of-thumb to the RPD which they follow. I don't know.

Hardboiled cynics might say that this downgrading is intentional because it makes the crime stats look better. I am not quite that cynical yet.

But the take-away is this: when you see crime stats for criminal mischief or vandalism consider the possibility that this was an attempted burglary that was written up as a lesser offense. I know I am a broken record on this, but if you want to know why the LEO was called in the first place you're going to have to listen to the scanner traffic. It's not a perfect solution but it's better than the alternatives.

Seriously, get a carry license

At the Spring Valley DART station today, taking the train to the fair.

Wife and I were walking up the stairs when a aggressive/freaky/huge looking dude stops dead in the middle of the stairway facing us and stares at us. We had to rearrange to go around him. I said "good morning" as we passed. He didn't answer and I didn't hear him move behind us. My heartrate was a little elevated because this dude did not seem right. He had that "I am a sociopath and would just as soon kill you" vibe.

A few minutes later we were up on the platform. He walked upstairs again and came right over to us. Oh boy. Here we go.

Him: Hey man, do you have $2?
Me: No, I don't.
Him: I didn't mean to be rude when you talked to me down there.
Me: No problem. It's all right.
Him: [suddenly agitated] Why did you talk to me?
Me: [boggling, WTF?] What?
Him: [more agitated, seemingly unhinged] Why did you talk to me, with all these other people here? Why the hell you wanna...
Me: I said "good morning". [At this point I pulled my elbow in a bit so I could be sure of the positioning of the subcompact 9mm in the holster on my hip.]
Him: [he continues ranting]
Me: "We're done here", and I shepherded the wife away.

Moved to the north end of the platform and he followed within a minute or so.
We moved to the south end and he followed after a bit. Crap. This isn't a coincidence.
Moved to the north end again and placed a call to RPD.

I identified him in pieces, as he kept getting close enough to hear and we had to relocate several times: Black male, 30+ yrs old, 6' 1" or 6' 2" (he was taller than me), 200#, black knit cap, dark sunglasses, long desert-style camo parka shell, brown pants.

Within a couple of minutes two officers (244 and 264) showed up and walked the platform. They walked south-to-north like they were scoping then went downstairs. I couldn't see where they were, if they had left, or what. My guess at that time was that they had ID'ed the guy from my description (he was obvious) and was waiting for the train to clear the crowd before moving in. At this point I was still on the phone with dispatch and we agreed to drop the call since two LEOs were on scene.

After the cops had been (downstairs? gone?) for about two minutes the fellow got agitated again and started asking a group of commuters "why the cops here? What they looking for? Those was Richardson po-lice, not DART po-lice."*, etc. We moved away again and so did not hear the rest.

Interesting that he was so clued in to the difference between the affilliation of the officers, and that he saw both of them although they were moving seperately in different areas and in a low-key fashion through the crowd. I knew they were on-scene somewhere and still barely spotted them until they were quite near. I suspect his questions indicated he understood the LEOs were not there on a random patrol, and he wanted to know who called the police. Frak.

Train came shortly thereafter, wife and I boarded, and our pet psycho stayed on the platform.


I came home and listened to the scanner traffic. Call came in at 9:28am, and my description was reduced to "BM, 6 foot, camo, panhandling and behaving strangely". Both cars were on-scene by 9:33am, then nothing more until one of the officers announced he was clear at 10:23am. Normally if they had stopped someone they would have run a background check on the NCIC channel, but that was not on the recording. I bet a dollar that psycho had an active warrant somewhere. I suspect no contact was made.
Lesson learned: next time I will request officer contact so I can ensure contact gets made with the suspect. I did not request contact w/me as we were waiting on a train and didn't know when it would arrive.

I guarantee you that an encounter like this with a potentially dangerous pursuer is much different when you are armed. Instead of being in trapped animal mode, you are aware of the options in the scenario. There is no huge power disparity, there is just a human acting strangely and aggressively which you have to deal with safely.
Here's another pointer to a decent unofficial overview of how to get started with your concealed carry license.


* I was conflicted about whether or not to transcribe this outburst into standard English. Tried it both ways and it seemed more artificial to put words in his mouth. So those are direct quotes. If you have a problem with this word choice or syntax, feel free to take it up with him.

NNO == RNI

In theory last night was National Night Out.
Only it wasn't because Tx met later to avoid the heat. So it was Texas Night Out.
Only it wasn't because COR moved our NNO to Oct 13.

But in Highland Terrace it looked more like National Night In (because of rain?) . I rode and drove HT from 6-8pm last night and met with two block parties. I also spoke with folks I saw outside that were not out for NNO.

One of the block parties consisted of two homeowners and the other was a comfortable group of folks (including part of the Crime Watch Patrol) with yummy food/drinks relaxing around a fire pit. They looked happy and neighborly. I think they have the model right. I'll spend more time with them and see what they they makes their block work when others do not.

I think the challenges of NNO are the same challenges that confront neighborhoods in COR in general:

* neighbors unaware that they live in a defined neighborhood. Sign toppers would help rectify this, but the recent COR council work session revealed how expensive that can be.

* many people were unaware this was NNO. Hmmm. I wonder how much one of those low-power radio stations costs to run? Farmers Branch has one and I like it.

Update: Best Foundation flyer

Update from the previous post.

I got a professional response from Always Distributing (AD hereafter), who appears to handled Best's flyer work. I received their email a few days ago but am just now answering; busy weekend.


Here is my email reply, with his text redacted as I am a little squeamish about posting email without consent when the sender appears to be operating in good faith.

[AD was concerned I had been inconvenienced]

I haven't been inconvenienced. My intent was to help local businesses comply with local law. [my personal info redacted], I am keenly interested in who enters our neighborhood and whether or not they perform their business lawfully.


[AD requests I delete the blog post]

I will update the posting, noting that you responded professionally.

I'll give it a month (Nov 2) and will contact Richardson PD to confirm that Always Distributing has obtained a permit to distribute flyers in Richardson. I am confident that AD will comply, as the process is inexpensive and easy (particularly when compared to the $500/day fine for distribution without a permit).


[AD is concerned that my blog post about AD's failure to comply will reflect poorly on Best]

I don't think it does. Looked like they handed my concern over to you quickly and you responded quickly. In a perfect world they probably would have responded to me directly as well but that's their call.

Suspect in 9/16 home invasion

The details, such as they are, can be found here.










While you've got your eyeballs peeled, this fellow is also loose in the region.

9/16 home invasion/kidnapping Buckingham apartments

Local 6pm news had a segment about a home invasion / robbery / kidnapping on Buckingham. I can't find any online sources of info yet. {Update: see vid at bottom}

My uncomfirmed instinct: is that it started last night and wasn't reported until this AM when the perps left the house so the residents could report it. The dispatch time and doesn't line up with the 9-to-12 hour event duration unless it started last night and ended this morning.



This is within easy walking distance of my house. I turned on a couple more exterior lights than usual, doublechecked the carry sidearm and the Moss 500. Yes, the Dear Wife also knows how to shoot them.

BTW, let's say it's the middle of the night and three armed men just kicked in your door (see above). How scary, inappropriate, and unnecessary is that homeowner's assault rifle now?

{edit: I do not mean to imply that an assault weapon is the best tool to combat home invaders; that role is served by a shotgun. Simpler to use, less $$$, and less risk of overpenetration. About the only time the assault rifle is a better deal is if the invaders are armored.}

Images by the amazing Oleg Volk.




I'll pull down this Ch11 vid from my MythTV box as soon as the segment appears on CBS 11. The audio and/or aspect may be jacked, as this is my first attempt at editing video.

10/7: 2 armed robberies in short order

Note: there are a couple of {corrections/additions} made to the post below.

I started out listening to the "tape" from 10/7 because I saw this:
09/07/2009 11:55 PM ROBBERY-INDIVIDUAL 1100 BLK of ABRAMS RD

The file is the full day's audio (about 4 hours of solid audio), and the robberies start around {10:30pm} (2300 hrs in military/PD lingo). That'd be about 75% into the file.

{It'd been a while since I'd listened to a whole day's audio so I listened to the whole thing. I was surprised to hear two armed robberies within an hour.}

There was also an interesting altercation at the DART rail station that gives you an idea of what kind of weird thing happens there. I was one to pooh-pooh the "DART stations breed chaos" argument, but I've heard some pretty crazy stuff reported from there. Maybe we need video surveillance if we don't have it already.

Other stuff worth listening to on there. You can play it on your iPod while you commute or whatever.

Reminder: if you have a CHL, carry. If you don't have a CHL, are eligible, and are comfortable with sidearms I encourage you to get licensed. Here is a layman's description of the process.

Once more, with feeling

I am beginning to think that acerss deliberately misunderstands my position re: RPD and residential burglary.

I'll give it one more go. Perhaps I am either too stubborn or naive to know when it is useless to try to explain.

> I'm glad you cleared up the focus of your dissension with the police
> department, but

I am not bagging on the RPD. I think we have a professional and competent bunch of officers on the street. 100% of the officers I have interacted with have been decent guys, competent, professional, and well-intentioned. I can't vouch for the deskjockey, detective, or leadership types because I haven't met many/any of them.

On the other hand I am not a cop worshipper. I do my part by obeying the law and treating others civilly and the LEOs do their part. I think it is important to make the city and PD better by pointing out what can be improved, and when spin needs to be reconciled with reality.


> you are still wrong about RPD's priorities regarding residential burglaries.


I wish that were the case.

> Both officers and administration have pushed hard to develop patrol initiatives
> and create public awareness to battle the rise in residential burglaries that have
> plagued all of north Dallas County cities.

I am aware of this; it does not refute my assertion that there is a difference in the level of concern about residential burglaries that RPD has v. what the homeowners have. {Emphasis added to help the reader home in on my assertion}

>Articles have even been posted by the department in the Richardson Today paper
> detailing how citizens can help the police in reducing and reporting suspected
> burglars in addition to education at crime watch meetings in the affected areas.

I stay informed of city publications, RPD suggestions, and crime watch issues so none of the above is new information to me. Again, your argument does not refute my assertion that there is a difference in the level of concern about residential burglaries that RPD has v. what the homeowners have.

I agree with RPD that prevention is the key here. I will go further and say that prevention is critical because the chance that any residential burglary scene will have Crime Scene called to it is exceptionally low, and it is very rare for residential burglars to get caught. In other words, if it doesn't get prevented it won't get solved. For whatever reason.

I am doing this from memory, but I think the Aug 18th arrest was the first time residential burglars were arrested at the scene in the last several months, during which citizens reported ~130 residential burglary incidents.

> The implication that any part of the Richardson Police Department does not take a
> felony offense seriously is flawed and uninformed.

I think you are intentionally misreading or misunderstanding me. I do not claim that RPD doesn't care about residential burglaries or any other crime. I am suggesting that given pressures from above and time constraints on the street something has got to give. The choices that RPD leadership and supervisors make in prioritizing residential burglary cases is not, I am claiming, the same priority that homeowners would assign. That's my last try at explaining it.

> The implication the RPD crime scene unit does not process burglary of habitation
> crime scenes is not only uninformed, its just wrong.

I would gladly review your evidence supporting this claim. Here's how I assessed it for myself.

I have monitored, recorded, and listened to hundreds of hours of COR public service radio transmissions, including RPD. I keep the last (rollling) 10 days on hand in digital format in case I need to refer to it. I keep close tabs on the serious crimes that are reported in my area of Richardson. I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that Crime Scene is very rarely dispatched to residential burglary scenes. Crime Scene is more commonly sent to business burglarly scenes. I do not know why this is so, and I won't try to guess.

People who have asked about this have been told "there's just no evidence to process". That does not ring true to me. It would make no sense that residential burglars are wiley criminals who leave no trace while business burglars leave abundant useful evidence.

The bottom line is that in residential burglary situations Crime Scene is generally not called, even when the homeowner is asking for surfaces to be processed for prints. That, IMO, is evidence of a significant difference in priority. Even if the citizen is dead wrong and the patrolman is completely right it's still a difference in priority.

If you think I am overstating RPD's willingness to shut down residential burglary calls with little post-contact investigation (generally zero detective or Crime Scene investigation), camp out on the crime map and see how long before the residential burglary incident goes INACTIVE. Historically, very few have any kind of PENDING or other status, even if citizens are volunteering information. Many are already marked INACTIVE by the time they show up on the map (generally 2-3 days). Cross-reference the incident with the scanner traffic and see how often Crime Scene is dispatched.


> Rant all you want about the city counsel and mayor, but leave the Richardson
> Police Department out of your politics.

{squinting}

Not sure what my politics are, or what they have to do with residential burglary.

burglary arrest in SE Richardson

A Signal 37 call (suspicious person) from a citizen on Stillmeadow resulted in multiple arrests for burglary today.

The good news:
* RPD handled the situation professionally after they engaged it
* 4 burglars caught
* no LEOs hurt

The bad news:
* The first officer started underway to the location eighteen minutes after it was called in. The dispatcher gave the "holding a 37" notification three times before it was picked up.

Here is unedited audio of RPD radio traffic during the event. Note that not all the audio is relevant to the burglary, particularly for the first few minutes while the call is awaiting assignment.

I think we got lucky on this one. Professional burglars would have been in/out well before that 18-min mark. I suspect there is a significant gap between the level of concern homeowners have about residential burglary and the level of concern within RPD about the same crime. I get it. It's not exciting for cops to chase burglars (unless you can catch them in the house as heard above). But the citizens care deeply about it.

The situation will change when one or more of these events becomes commonplace:

* Richardson residents start applying Castle Doctrine to the defense of their home.
* Richardson residents get injured or killed by burglars.
* Richardson residents resort to hiring private crime scene examiners when RPD declines to do simple detective work like photography and fingerprinting.
* A city official personally experiences burglary/robbery.
* Richardson residents start running their own armed patrols to secure their neighborhoods. Think this is a stretch? Anyone remember pictures of the "Collin County Militia" that used to be on the walls at the Main Street Liquid Company?
* The white-flighters that rushed to Richardson in the 1970s (now retirees) either sell their houses and retire elsewhere, or start demanding nontrivial amount of attention from city officials.

I am not recommending, I'm predicting. None of these will look good on the local media. And that, as far as I can tell, is the only real leverage anyone has over city government. Reality is useless. Perception is everything.