here’s where it’s going to get scary imo..
there doesn't have to be bad cops for this to be scary
when all the small police departments are connected state and country wide
centralized police department
after reading this..which is local to me news (you can ignore..only copied for background)
I can see the future..centralize police..and that would be close to a military state without being declared one
..not so much that they would have more info but that the wrong info could be used so readily....
and we already know that erasing something on line is impossible already..thoughts of mccathy swim thur my brain
I am not a criminal and am a very law abiding citizen but thoughts of a centralized police scares the beegeebers outta me
Barring a missing child, a murder investigation or another high profile crime, police departments don't always tell the public about crimes occurring in their communities. Sometimes, they lack the means to get word out to the public effectively.
“This is one of the prices we pay for 18,000 police departments in the United States,” said Wesley G. Skogan, professor of political science at Northwestern University.
For life-threatening incidents, such as a missing person, small police departments often communicate readily, according to Skogan.
But such communication often is lacking for routine cases.
If there was a centralized police department, “identification of crime patterns would be much more routine,” he said.
Police challenged in circulating information on Alle-Kiski crime spree
Read more:
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By Mary Ann Thomas
Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015, 12:01 a.m.
A Lower Burrell resident watched incredulously as a young man pulled laptop computers and other electronics from a bank of weeds across the street from his house.
That tip from a private citizen led police to crack a car break-in spree that stung more than 100 victims in 10 communities in August and September. Four suspects are awaiting their trials sometime in 2015 in Westmoreland County Court.
How did a handful of allegedly drug-addled thieves outwit residents and police for two months before a resident's tip nabbed them?
A Valley News Dispatch examination of the case found:
• A lack of communication among police departments.
• Insufficient communication among the police, media outlets and the public.
• People leaving valuables in plain sight in unlocked vehicles.
• The ability for thieves to sell stolen items at legitimate businesses that can take only their identifying information at the time of purchase.
VND interviews of area police chiefs found spotty crime-alert communications from police to residents.
The car break-in spree was allegedly pulled off by several heroin addicts looking for items that could be converted to quick cash.
They cased unlocked vehicles in unsuspecting “safe” neighborhoods in Lower Burrell; Washington, Allegheny, Kiski, Upper Burrell and Bell townships; and West Leechburg, Plum, Oklahoma and Leechburg boroughs.
Awaiting charges are four area residents who allegedly stole hundreds of items: Michael B. Guzzi, 28, of Washington Township; his sister, Kristy Sue Guzzi, 30; and her boyfriend, Alexander Steven Molnar, 29, both of 201 Floral Ave., Leechburg; and Ryan Seybert, 24, of Hulton Road, Allegheny Township.
The stolen items included wallets and purses containing cash and credit cards, GPS units, a high-powered rifle, nine handguns, six sets of golf clubs, four laptop computers, iPods, cell phones and high-end sunglasses.
And the loot was easy to steal: Almost every victim left the vehicle unlocked in the driveways.
Washington Township Chief Scott Slagle said he was most concerned about the stolen forearms.
“Those guns aren't going to upstanding people,” said Slagle, who had seven handguns stolen in his township. “They are guns that will be used in crimes later down the road.
One suspect allegedly traded a gun for heroin. Kristy Guzzi allegedly told police she tried to sell a handgun in New Kensington, but the “buyer” instead stole it from her.
Who knew?
Many residents didn't know that they were targets.
Barring a missing child, a murder investigation or another high profile crime, police departments don't always tell the public about crimes occurring in their communities. Sometimes, they lack the means to get word out to the public effectively.
“This is one of the prices we pay for 18,000 police departments in the United States,” said Wesley G. Skogan, professor of political science at Northwestern University.
For life-threatening incidents, such as a missing person, small police departments often communicate readily, according to Skogan.
But such communication often is lacking for routine cases.
If there was a centralized police department, “identification of crime patterns would be much more routine,” he said.
Lower Burrell Chief Tim Weitzel said, “As much as I hate to say it, but with the workload, it is up to the municipalities to decide what they have to investigate.”
Violent crimes and domestic threats command immediate attention.
“Then you get a break, like someone in Lower Burrell saw one of the suspects,” he said. “You have to prioritize, you have to hit the local pawn shops and use police resources to go to a second-hand store in Monroeville or Greensburg.”
‘We tried to tell them'
Leechburg and Washington Township police put out Facebook alerts, telling residents of the car break-ins and pleading with them to keep their cars locked.
“When we talked to the people involved, the suspects said that they didn't do good in some neighborhoods because the bulk of the cars were locked,” Lower Burrell Detective Lt. Robert Galvanek said.
Not all of the residents knew they'd been victimized. In some cases, police powered up GPS units, found the owners' addresses and alerted residents that their unit had been stolen, according to Weitzel.
“Then some people don't even take the time to report the theft,” Weitzel said. “They just chalked it up to a loss.”
Washington Township posted information about the break-ins on the township's Facebook page on Aug. 14 and had 2,154 hits. They re-posted it on Sept. 16 and got another 7,884 hits.
Leechburg warned residents on its Facebook page as well, and the car break-in post “went around the Internet like wildfire,” said Leechburg Mayor Shawn Lerch.
But not everybody noticed and not all methods of communications work as well and as fast as police would like.
Even when given the chance to receive police alerts, most residents don't bite.
Allegheny Township tried, unsuccessfully, to get residents to go online and sign up for Nixle, which would provide email and text alerts from police.
Out of Allegheny Township's population of about 8,200, only about 140 signed up for Nixle.
North Huntingdon has the same problem: only about 3,000 residents out of an estimated 30,000 signed up for Nixle, according to Chief Andrew Lisiecki.
When a car break-in crime spree, which Lisiecki calls “car shopping,” broke out there and surrounding communities in the summer, police used Nixle but also issued press releases, trying to get media coverage to alert residents.
“We try to get the media to help us, but unfortunately ‘car shopping' doesn't take priority over homicides and rapes,” Lisiecki said.
But North Huntingdon also had great success recently in reaching out through traditional media. The township experienced several car entries the week before Christmas, including one in which the thieves used garage door openers to burglarize homes.
The department issued a news release about the case with a warning to residents and received coverage in several newspapers and on all three Pittsburgh television stations.
Allegheny Township Chief John Fontaine said that the large majority of break-ins were in housing plans where there were easy opportunities for the thieves to look for unlocked cars on foot.
“We were sending out Nixle reports and getting messages into the communities,” he said. “We increased housing plan patrols at night, we had officers spending a lot of time in those areas looking for suspicious activity. We were out there.”
The number of unlocked cars in the spree was alarming — but not surprising — to local police chiefs.
“I can tell you for a fact that some people that I told specifically to make sure their vehicles were locked, they went unlocked and got broken into,” said Washington Township's Slagle. “They called me and they were embarrassed.”
Washington Township had almost 30 car entries in a five-week period.
“People believe that they are in the country and things like that don't happen out here — and the suspects prey on that mentality,” he said.
Ease of the crime, getting caught
A Lower Burrell resident, who has chosen to remain anonymous, followed one of the suspects — reportedly Michael Guzzi — and jotted down his license plate number. That's when Westmoreland County Detective John Clark and Lower Burrell police put together the pieces.
Police checked the resale shops and talked to neighboring police departments to investigate the reach of the crimes.
“By the time we got it, the bulk of the crimes had been committed,” said Lower Burrell's Galvanek.
The stolen items can be relatively easy to find as many are sold to second-hand shops. Such sales require a seller's identification, which is recorded by the store.
One resale shop that bought numerous items from the ring was Tradeyourstuff4cash on Fourth Avenue in Tarentum.
There was no response from the owner for repeated requests for an interview.
The suspects allegedly sold a number of golf club sets at Play It Again Sports in Greensburg, which offers used sports equipment.
“There are some people that look a little shaky,” said Jeff Edgar, owner of Play It Again Sports. “But as long as long as we have their information, we can't accuse of them of something.”
The store wrote up to about $1,000 checks for golf clubs in question. With police taking the stolen clubs to return to the victims, the store will likely lose out on $600 to $700, according to Edgar.
“This doesn't happen often,” he said, noting that golf clubs are high-ticket items. “There's a market for it and they know that. A lot of times, it's a family member selling golf clubs.”
Edgar stressed that people need to file a police report in order for police to alert them to watch for stolen items.
Mary Ann Thomas is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.