Stop crime before it happens
75% percent of the time the police get a call after a crime has happened and the criminals are gone. Only 25% of the time do they get a call as a crime is unfolding. Here’s one example where the community could have helped arrest vehicle thieves right away just by reporting things they saw as suspicious on Lightcatch.
a) A truck was seen flying past someone in Leedale, AB about 8am
b) A Jeep was found in Eckville AB between 8am-9am with a tow rope on the hood, drugs inside, and front shroud damage.
c) A home was reported broken into and a car was stolen in Ponoka County about 4am.
All of these crimes were done by the same people. Here is how the community reported it.
The scattered information allowed the criminals to stay 1 step ahead the whole time.
Here is what those same crimes looked like on Lightcatch.
Meanwhile the thieves were long gone.
The truck seen was found out to be stolen from Calgary but has only been seen in the area and not recovered.
The Jeep was at the scene of the crime in Ponoka County as body parts missing from the Jeep were found there.
The Ford Edge was recovered in Springview parked two days later.
If these suspicious activities had been reported on the right tool the community could have help track the people’s movement. That tracking could have led to an arrest of the red truck. The red truck had some of the thieves inside. They were on the run when spotted several times flying down the road.
In hindsight the reports that came in from caring people helped. But between Eckville and where the Ford Edge was stolen from 4am — 8am there was a lot of suspicious activity that no one reported. There were four hours to help stop this crime by reporting the suspicious activity down these roads.
Now, three days after the crime, If the truck is recovered, they likely won’t even be arrested for these events. The evidence is so watered down the courts won’t be able to prosecute them.
Stopping repeat offenders and property crimes is a solveable problem. It takes people coming together and using the right tool in a way that doesn’t rob their time so much that they can’t afford the time to help anymore. Once that is done the criminals current way of staying in business becomes too difficult to make it pay.
Scattering information across several Facebook groups is crowdsourcing in slow motion. Nothing ever gets tracked in real time and the thieves can stay 1 step ahead because people aren’t working together the way they could be. The majority of people can’t keep up with all the groups and random pieces of information.
Help share this message that we now have the power to improve our safety and others safety in our hands.
