By The Public Communications Office
In this episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Marketing Coordinator Grace Hallowell and CSPD Public Information Officer David Simmons talk about holiday safety and how to protect your property effectively.
Transcript
Grace Hallowell
What’s up, College Station! I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined by Mr. David Simmons from the College Station Police Department. Hi, David.
David Simmons
Hello, how are you?
Grace Hallowell
I’m doing well. We are a few days out from Christmas now. Yes, we are. And one of my favorite movies is Home Alone. Great movie Kevin McAllister is Oh yeah, great. But along with home Alone, burglaries can happen. It’s not just in the movies, it’s not just made up. The wet bandits, so to speak, can happen in real life too. Absolutely. So you’re here to tell us some tips to keep our families and our homes safe during the holiday season. I know the college kids are on their way out or on their way home for break, so you’re here to help keep us all safe.
David Simmons
Yeah, no, absolutely. We definitely see with the college kids, kind of our student living areas, especially the barracks and then kind of that historic district as well. We do see a lot of burglaries where it’s when residents will, unfortunately, leave their doors unlocked or it’s forced entry. So please be mindful if you have the opportunity, get yourself some sort of security camera, security device, something on the doors as well as just lock your doors, please. If you’re leaving a vehicle, don’t leave the keys in it. Don’t leave the keys anywhere where they could really find it. Things like that.
Grace Hallowell
Right, and that’s a good point. Don’t just lock your house; lock your vehicles too.
David Simmons
Absolutely. We’re having a lot of vehicle thefts, so people stealing cars because the majority are keys being left inside. The way that technology is and these new cars are, you can just basically leave your key in there. You can punch a code in, or I think you can remote access from your phone or something like that. So please take your keys. Don’t be a victim. It’s the best thing that we can say.
Grace Hallowell
And make sure those doors are locked. I know I had a friend who had left his laptop in the car, and he left his car unlocked, and I was like, why did you do that? And well, I didn’t want them breaking my window, but nowadays, criminals are getting a little smarter, and they’re realizing they can just check those door handles rather than make a scene and smash a window. Correct. Yeah.
David Simmons
Well, and we definitely push it on our social media to hashtag lock take hide. It’s lock your cars, take your valuables or hide your valuables if you happen to have to be in a situation where you need to leave your laptop or something along those lines; keep a log of your serial number just in case there is forced entry or you might’ve forgotten because that’s the best way that we’re going to be able to catch these people. Majority of the time, those items will get brought to a pawn shop or get sold on Facebook Marketplace or things like that and we can put it into a national database. So if something with a serial number that’s been reported stolen comes up, then boom, now our detectives can start asking questions.
Grace Hallowell
And then another helpful tip, people are going to be celebrating a lot for the holidays with Christmas and with New Year’s. So let’s talk a little bit about some traffic safety while we’re celebrating having a good time, there is a way to do it safely.
David Simmons
Yes, yes, there is. So I think the main thing that we can talk about is with the holidays come celebration. Celebration. A lot of people like to drink alcohol, but please be smart about drinking alcohol. Do not get behind the wheel of a car, find a designated driver or get an Uber. There’s going to be Ubers that are going to be out and about. I think, and I was just talking to you earlier about this, but just this weekend alone, we had nine DWIs in one night, and that’s just in College Station, and it’s kind of scary to think about how many others we weren’t able to find that night. It’s not worth it. No, it is not worth getting behind the wheel of these cars. If you’re with your family and you’ve had a couple of drinks, a couple of egg nogs, or something like that, and you’ve got your kids in the car, it’s a recipe for disaster. So please be safe. Fireworks as well. We see a lot of fireworks start popping up this time of year, with New Year’s just around the corner as well. Fireworks are illegal in the City of College Station. If you pop fireworks inside the city limits and we find out who you are, we will write you a ticket. If you continue to do that, then we will continue writing tickets. Or if you don’t learn your lesson, sorry, you get to go to jail.
Grace Hallowell
And if other residents are seeing some suspicious behavior, how can they report that or what do they do if they see something suspicious and they think they need to call you guys but not necessarily call 911, what do they do?
David Simmons
So the best thing to do is call our non-emergency line, that’s 979-764-3600. What I’ve been seeing, because I handle our social media as well, people will start reaching out on social media. Now I have my phone on me consistently, but I’m the only one that mans that. And sometimes they’re just not in a position. And there are some certain situations where an officer needs to go out to this thing that they’re reporting to our social media, whether that be Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Please call that number, and let our dispatchers know because we would rather it be nothing and have officers show up than it be something. And now it’s a big deal.
Grace Hallowell
Right. And a good rule of thumb, too, if you’re not sure whether or not to call 911, your dispatchers, they’ll never reprimand you for calling 911 if you think it’s an emergency.
David Simmons
Absolutely. On the other hand, if they left the pickles off of your hamburger at Whataburger, that’s not an emergency, not a situation where you would want to call 911.
Grace Hallowell
Well, is there anything else you can share with us about being safe during the holidays?
David Simmons
Nope, just everybody have a Merry Christmas, be safe.
Grace Hallowell
Alright, well thank you for joining me today. Absolutely. And that’s what’s up.
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