Police Wrap: Geraldton police OIC Sen. Sgt Chris Martin on crime prevention, car theft, and hiding valuables

On Tuesday, we had five reports of vehicle break-ins. Drummond Cove, Mount Tarcoola, Strathalbyn, Utakarra, and Geraldton.

We’re working hard to identify exactly who’s responsible for these break-ins, but it does appear to be a trend of breaking into motor vehicles at the moment.

In some instances, cars have been locked and windows have been smashed, so I suppose the thing I really want to push forward is to keep valuables out of sight.

Before you lock your car up, just have a quick look around. Make sure nothing’s on show that someone would perhaps want to break into your car for, because the last thing you want is to be playing golf or running into the shop and coming back to a damaged car.

Be a bit more proactive and park under the streetlight, park in the view of CCTV cameras, take those careful steps to make sure your property is kept as secure as possible.

These are usually cases of opportunity, there were two incidents at the Golf Club on Monday night about 6pm. People are obviously playing a round of golf which can take up to a couple of hours and come back to their vehicles damaged.

Another example this week was when we had a sparky in town fixing a power pole and left his car running beneath him. The car was stolen.

It’s just an ongoing message I want to send to the community that crime prevention is everyone’s responsibility.

Sometimes it’s just loose change which would indicate children or juvenile offenders. Sometimes phones and iPads, electrical devices or dash cams are stolen.

I know it’s very hard and people who perhaps are not regular victims of crime become slightly complacent with a ‘that won’t happen to me’ type attitude. When it does happen, it can be quite distressing so we want to try and prevent that as much as we can.

Stealing goes through peaks and troughs, similar to burglary offending patterns. Crime certainly rises into the summer, warmer months and we’re certainty heading into the start of that. We will start to see the upward trend of offending.

So just be crime smart is my basic advice.

Sen. Sgt Chris Martin is officer in charge at Geraldton Police Station