Park Smart Initiative for District 2 residents

From: Robinson, Ronnie L
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 7:36 AM
Subject: Park Smart Initiative for District 2 residents

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The St. Louis Metropolitan area, that means both City and County are suffering daily from individuals breaking into vehicles and stealing personal items left behind by the car owner.  In law enforcement we call this crime “Car Clouting”.  As Captain of Police and Commander of District 2, I am asking you to help me and my officers fight this crime.  We have got to stop leaving our personal items in our vehicles!!!  The individuals that are committing these crimes are Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Bosnian, males and females.  The ages range from kids to adults.  They are Gang members, Drug addicts, students, and all are thieves.  I know this to be a fact because we have arrested individuals that match these descriptors.  We have arrested these individuals both day and night and often because we target areas where the crime is happening consistently and we target individuals who constantly commit this crime over and over.  We have arrested these individuals because of good police work and often times because a citizen calls 911 for suspicious persons or suspicious activity!!  There are multiple common denominators about this crime but you need to know the number one!

The number one factor and most common denominator about “Car Clouting” is that the victim leaves his or her personal items in the vehicle.  Most occasions the items are not locked in the trunk but left in plain view.  Items such as Purses, GPS systems, laptop computers, cell phones, chargers, and radar detectors.  If you have to travel to a location and you can not take your personal items with you, secure them in the trunk before you get to your location.  If we start taking our personal items out of our vehicles when we park them, this will help tremendously towards the efforts of stopping the criminals committing this crime.  Also please do not hesitate to call 911 when you see suspicious persons, vehicles, and activity in your neighborhood.  When you see something suspicious focus on descriptors that will help us identify the problem.

Call 911, I am very confident together we can decrease this crime tremendously if we work together.  Let’s put pressure on the criminals and not be easy targets for them, let’s maintain our neighborhoods and run them away and not let them run us away!  For those of you that are fighting for your community thank you so much for helping make District 2 and the city of St. Louis a better place to live!

Respectfully,

Captain Ronnie Robinson

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department

Commander District 2