Beat Cop: "I know it when I see it"

Thanks for all the great questions. Keep 'em coming...

Mark:

When is something considered by the Police to be considered a civil matter, as opposed to a criminal one?

Beat Cop:

Mark, “I know it when I see it...”

That’s a line made famous by the U.S. Supreme Court when trying to define obscenity in the ‘60s. Well, trying to answer your question caused me to recall that famous line. How do we know if the situation put before us when we respond to a call is civil or criminal?

In short, we know it when we see it. In the world of police work, criminal law trumps civil law, and civil laws are many times hands-off for the police. We have well-trained dispatchers who can help you decipher the nature of your particular situation and let you know if the police can help. If there is still some uncertainty, please feel free to ask for an officer to respond.

Police departments can generally only enforce criminal laws. Sometimes a person will clearly violate a civil law and a citizen calls the police to take action. In a case like that, the police can assist by providing the appropriate court information but could not take action or force the issue.

One of the most common civil cases we come across are tenant-landlord issues. Local police departments do not handle most issues relating to evictions. The Sheriff’s department has a civil division that can assist with the eviction process and ultimately the physical eviction. It can be a long process, and we understand the frustration when you call the police for assistance and we can only point you in the right direction.

For more eviction information, contact the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department Civil Division at (408) 808-4800. The California Department of Consumer Affairs has a website with information, forms and explanations of laws. You can even request a free booklet explaining landlord tenant issues.

‘Til next time, proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Beat Cop Responds

Thanks for all the great questions. Keep 'em coming...

Karen:

When should I call 911 vs 311?

Beat Cop:

Karen, you are not alone with this question. I get asked this all the time. The best advice I can give you is: if in doubt ,call 911. In many situations, a citizen might feel there is not an actual emergency, like a fist fight or theft occurring at a shopping center. The Police Department would like you to call 911 in cases of any crime in progress or any level of emergency.

Calling 911 with a preserved, low level of emergency is not going to prevent someone from getting through with a “real emergency”. Calling 911 early and getting the appropriate police or fire response can however, prevent a situation from escalating and becoming the “real emergency”. 311 can be used from home phones only and is available for calls like music complaints, parking violations and police questions.

911 calls using cell phones are slightly more complicated. (311 is not available on cell phones.) Recently, a 911 cell phone switching system has been implemented, routing your cell phone 911 call to the local police agency whose jurisdiction you are calling from. This system is not flawless and often will default to the California Highway Patrol. Getting connected to the CHP while in San Jose can happen when you are near a freeway but not on it or when the system is not sure where you are. If you are connected to the CHP, dispatchers will make the transfer back to San Jose Police.

A sure way to get San Jose Police from the start on a cell phone is by calling 277-8911. This number will connect you the same way as a 911 call made from your home. You may want to store this number in your phone and put it on speed dial.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Beat Cop: A Dangerous Playground

We all are mindful of predators that may be lurking near a school or playground. However, the Internet is a place where our children are playing much more frequently, and it is becoming increasingly dangerous. Some studies show that one in seven children between the ages of 10 and 17 will be sexually solicited online. Hate groups use the Internet to recruit young, impressionable kids. Studies show that anywhere from 20-70% of online children have been victims of some form of cyber-bullying. Many recent juvenile acts of violence have been linked to a cultivation of hate and violence online.

Growing problems from cyber-bullying are showing up at our schools. Disputes originating at school are transferred online and are fueled by unsupervised public humiliation in the online world. Results of cyber-bullying can range from depression and poor academic performance to violence on campus and even suicide.

Some of the 64,000 sexual offender registrants in California that are child predators have turned to the Internet as a new playground to prey upon. Most parents of child victims solicited online did not even consider that there was a physical risk to their children being online. We, as beat cops, are seeing more and more cases of child victimization on the Internet. Many cases in which a child had been victimized online only got to that point after a long period of interaction between the predator and the child.

These cases could have been prevented with the use of some simple Internet safety tips, like placing computers centrally in the home and using available monitoring or filtering software. Most computers have built-in parental controls in their operating systems and Internet browsers with varying levels of control. Service providers like AOL also have parental controls.

Start by becoming familiar with these safety tools. Learn how to check your computer’s online browser history. Next, invest in “aftermarket” Internet content filters, blockers, and/or trackers. This simple type of software is available for sale online and at local electronic stores. Examples of some are Netnanny, kidsnet and Spector Pro. These programs can filter or block content on the web. Social networking sites — like MySpace — and chat rooms can be monitored, and total time online or on these sites can be limited. Content trackers like Spector Pro can log all the emails, web pages, chats, and MySpace activity on a computer in an easy-to-use program, giving you a quick overview of your child's Internet activity. Knowing what your child is doing online and who is interacting with them is the key to keeping them safe.

Next, you should become familiar with the dangers our children are exposed to online. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (www.missingkids.com) is the world’s leading organization and partner with law enforcement for the elimination of online sexual exploitation of children. NCMEC operates a phone and online system to report any form of child solicitation at 1-800-THELOST or www.cybertipline.com. Tips are forwarded to the appropriate federal, local, or task force law enforcement agency for investigation. NCMEC also offers free online safety training at www.netsmartz.org. Also available are a variety of learning games for children as well as resources, videos, free CD's and presentations for parents educators and law enforcement. There is even the opportunity for a local presentation to be made at your school or organization. If the whole online world is a mystery for you there is a parents’ resource to explain all this mumbo jumbo in plain English at www.netsmartz411.org. Online help as well as free phone advice is available.

Your San Jose Police Department is working hard to keep kids safe online. The San Jose Police Child Exploitation Detail is a member of the National Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force program. The lives our kids lead online deserve the same amount of attention and protection we give them in the rest of their lives. Providing that protection will take some catching up for most parents out there, but the resources and help are available to you. Please take some time to consider what a dangerous playground the Internet can be and report any attempts of online solicitation of a child to the police.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Ask Beat Cop

This feature worked out so well last time that we had to bring it back. If you’d like to submit a question, click here and fill out the form provided. Be sure to include your first name and email address. Beat Cop will respond to all of your questions and even blog some answers in the bi-weekly Beat Cop column.

Beat Cop Responds

Looks like our experiment worked. Thanks for all the great questions. I tried to pick one to answer in this week’s blog, but in this first installment, I’ll respond to two of them...

George:

I am always impressed by the way SJ officers always seem to keep their uniforms pressed and neat. But this raises some questions: How much does one complete uniform cost? Do officers get a uniform allowance? Does it cover 100% of costs? Does the department require officers to have a minimum number of uniforms? And what happens if, during the course of a shift, a uniform gets messed up (blood, torn in a struggle, etc.)? Is the officer required to change uniforms so that he/she can look professional for the rest of the shift? Thanks for keeping us safe!

Beat Cop:

Thanks for the question(s) George.

A set of uniform pants and shirt costs about $300 dollars. That does not include boots, hat, tie, and nameplates, which together total about $250. Each officer is required to have a clean, military-pressed uniform for each day of work. Officers usually maintain three to four sets of uniforms. Some uniforms will be at the cleaners and others will be rotated for use on upcoming work days.

Officers are required to have a clean uniform ready to change into during a shift if it is exposed to blood, torn or soiled. Dry cleaning is the only way to get the uniforms looking the way they do. The cost of dry-cleaning pants and a shirt is about $6. Normal wear and tear gives a new uniform a lifespan of about a year.

A total of four sets of uniforms, boots, and dry cleaning for a year comes to a total of $2,050. The city provides a $675 uniform allowance to each officer and does not cover any dry cleaning costs. That leaves $1,375 out of pocket for each officer per year.

—

Kathleen:

I live near Houge Park in [City Council] District 9. Every night after 10 pm, there are teenagers at the playground drinking and smoking pot. I never see any police officers patrol there. Why not? Is it because you are short-staffed?

Beat Cop:

Most parks are “closed” after dusk per municipal code. Drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana or just being in a park after hours are all crimes. Whenever you see this type of activity, call 3-1-1 (non-emergency line) and report it. Officers will be dispatched if they are not responding to crimes in progress or crimes with greater priority.

If the activity is ongoing and you would like to request officers make patrol checks in your neighborhood, you can call 3-1-1 for that as well. The dispatcher can make up a patrol check request that will be routed to the officers that work the area and make the supervisors aware of the problem. Officers will generally make checks at parks in their beat when they have free patrol time.

For the purposes of policing, San Jose is divided into patrol divisions, districts, and finally individual beats. I cannot remember the last time every beat in the city was filled with an officer. The hours you are concerned about — after 10pm — tend to be the busiest times for calls for service. Depending on the time of night, your whole council district may only have 5-8 officers patrolling it. A large event or several small events commonly leave no officers free to patrol parks during these times.

The San Jose Police Department is undeniably short-staffed. It is possible that there are not officers assigned to the beat your park is in from time to time and officers must respond form neighboring beats and districts to calls for service in yours. The chronic lack of officers in a city the size of ours is a well-known problem that has been overlooked by our city administration. The city has consistently denied our Chief of Police’s request for an appropriate amount of officers to patrol the city.

Despite these shortfalls, SJPD takes pride in addressing all crime in our city. We ask that the public be patient form time to time as we address your problems with our current level of staffing. You can also help us help you. When reporting a crime, be as descriptive as possible. Write down license plates, clothing descriptions, and anything else that could help a responding officer locate the people responsible for the crime.

I will pass on your patrol request to the beat cop in your area and have an officer contact you for more information.

—

That’s all for now. If you have a question for Beat Cop, please fill out this online form, and we will try to answer each question individually and may use yours in upcoming blogs.

Check back next Thursday for a new Beat Cop column.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Ask Beat Cop

Readers,

Every other Thursday, we post columns by Beat Cop, one of over 1,300 sworn San Jose police officers who keep us safe by protecting our streets and neighborhoods. So far, Beat Cop has commented on the rise of burglaries in San Jose and what citizens can do to prevent it, exposed deficiencies in police staffing and budgeting, and informed us of new programs that help residents and business owners fight back against vandalism.

To be sure, Beat Cop has plenty more stories to tell, but this week, we’re debuting a new feature of Protect San Jose that will allow you to ask direct questions of San Jose’s finest. If you’ve ever wondered why three or four black-and-whites were needed for the same traffic stop, or how many cops are patrolling your neighborhood on any given night, or what eight years of budget cuts mean to the average cop on the street, now’s your chance to Ask Beat Cop.

If you’d like to submit a question, click here and fill out the form provided. Be sure to include your first name and email address. Beat Cop will respond to all of your questions and even blog some answers in the bi-weekly Beat Cop column.

We hope you enjoy this new experiment. Stay safe.

Protect San Jose

Beat Cop: Tag, You're It...

Did any one notice massive amounts of graffiti on buildings as they drove to work today? I didn't either, probably because San Jose has long made reducing graffiti a priority. Travel to any major city in the country and you will very likely recall tagging spread throughout the city where you were vacationing or on a business trip. Some large cities like San Francisco, LA and New York have even become destinations for traveling vandals. People traveling to San Jose can feel our community pride and have a sense of security knowing that a city this free from graffiti makes crime a priority. A business looking to relocate to San Jose surely will be influenced by tagging in the area of their prospective business. There has been a long standing partnership between city leaders, city services, community members, business, probation, courts and the police department to keep San Jose free from graffiti. Unfortunately, like many crimes in our city, graffiti vandalism has risen in recent years. Two San Jose Police Detectives in the METRO unit are responsible for investigating thousands of graffiti and vandalism cases a year.

Now the citizens of San Jose have a new weapon to help keep their streets clean. A little more than two weeks ago, the San Jose Police Department launched a new online graffiti reporting system. The new system is accessed on the department’s website, SJPD.org, under the Report a Crime/Graffiti tab. It allows citizens to take digital photographs of graffiti and upload the pictures directly into a police database. The reported graffiti does not even need to be on your property. Graffiti detectives track the distinctive tags and locate the suspects responsible for them. Having a database of tags allows for effective prosecution of vandals in our community. Once a suspect is associated to a distinctive tag, detectives can then charge the suspect with past tags logged in the database. Victims of the vandalism are reconnected and have an opportunity to recover the cost of the vandalism through the court’s restitution process. All police agencies in the county have signed on to the San Jose police-initiated system. Other cities in the state like San Francisco are joining the shared network as well. Citizens who are in need of a crime report for insurance proposes or who have suspect information can still call 3-1-1; or file an online report using SJPD.org.

If you locate graffiti on city property, you can report it for clean up to the city of San Jose Anti graffiti hotline at (408) 277-2758. Remember, by immediately addressing new graffiti, we send a strong, zero-tolerance message to the perpetrators. If you want to get directly involved in keeping your community graffiti- and crime-free, you can become a volunteer. The City of San Jose has a program to assist residents and businesses that need to remove graffiti from their property. Free paint and graffiti solvent is available through the San Jose Anti-Graffiti program at 501 Vine St. To pick up your free Anti-Graffiti Tool Kit or to volunteer to clean up graffiti, call (408) 277-3208. Working together we can protect San Jose from the blight and crime associated with graffiti.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Help Us Get Your Stuff Back

By Beat Cop

Part three of a three-part series.

Getting woken up by a late night phone call from the police is almost always a bad thing. Extreme anxiety fills your body as you hear, “Hello this is Officer Fernandez from the Police Department.” The worst case scenario runs throughout your head.

“We have located a laptop computer that may have been taken from your house in a burglary. If you can come down to the police department and identify it, I may be able to release it to you tonight.“ Sounds almost too good too be true. It could be a reality if you follow some simple advice from your local Beat Cop.

Taking the time to inventory items in your home may be the most effective weapon you have in helping the police catch thieves. When an officer responds to your home to take a burglary report, they will look for clues, canvass for witnesses and catalog the items taken. A victim who has serial numbers written down for their stolen iPod, laptop, camcorder and Play-Station will likely get “some or all” of the items returned to them. If however, no serial numbers are available, there is almost no chance the items will ever be returned to their rightful owners.

All police departments in California utilize the same database to track stolen items. High-value items are entered into a nationwide tracking system. Police come into contact with crooks every day as part of our job. It can be frustrating to come into contact with a person on parole for burglary that has three laptops in a backpack and tells you that he “found them.” The officer will surely do their part and have the dispatcher check the serial numbers in the database. But if the victims of the burglary were not able to provide serial numbers to the responding officer, the parolee may be able to walk away with the likely stolen laptops. Even if the officer is able to seize the laptops for further investigation, the owners will likely never be located if no serial number was provided.

Burglars are predictable. If you or your neighborhood have been target for a burglar, it is likely they will continue to victimize that same area. One tool citizens use more frequently is a low-cost home video surveillance system. Home DVR systems are becoming more popular and are helping the police catch burglars. Even if you have not been the victim of a burglary, your video system may have seen the person who broke into your neighbor’s home and is planning on breaking into yours in the near future. Neighborhood organizations and groups are coordinating with each other after a crime occurs on their street. They are sharing information about the crime in emails, community meetings and now videos of suspicious people — and even criminals caught in the act.

Help us help you now and download this simple home inventory form. Walk through your home and jot down the make, model and serial numbers of any item in your house you would like returned to you if ever a burglar makes their way into your home and walks off with your stuff. Take photos of jewelry and items without serial numbers. Tuck the form away and hope it is never needed. If the unfortunate day comes when you do need it, you will have done the most effective thing you can to help the police catch the person who violated you and get your stuff back.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Preventing the Break-In

By Beat Cop

Part two of a three-part series

I just added a new “friend” on Facebook. I don’t know this person, but two of my friends do, so why not, right?

Of course, I forget for the moment that I’ve used this excuse to add half the friends I already have. I click “What’s on your mind?” and enter a status update for all my digital friends to enjoy. Something witty... I know, talk about the New York trip... “Beat Cop is looking forward to his trip to NYC on Monday.”

Sadly this innocent act is just an example of one of the increasing burglary opportunities we’ve seen. Yes, the criminal I just added to my “social network” reads my update as, “Beat Cop is leaving town on Monday, I can’t wait to break his window, go in his house, go through his stuff, and steal whatever looks good.”

Far fetched or not, that scenario is rearing it’s ugly head too often lately. After reading the last Beat Cop article, "Nightmare On My Street," you learned that a reduction in police staffing has led to an increase of residential burglaries in our city. This week we will look at burglary prevention. We will explore ways all of us can contribute in order to prevent burglaries from occurring as well as learn ways to catch the crooks coming into our homes. In part three we will look at ways to get the cuffs onto those who prey on residents while they are away from their homes.

Burglary is a crime that is preventable even when you are not home. Burglars are in general cowardly and lazy. Most often they look for easy targets and quick loot. After succeeding with an easy break in, a burglar will go on the prowl for the next easy target, often in the same area/neighborhood.

I used the look up calls for service in your area link on the www.protectsanjose.com and saw that there were 94 burglaries last week in San Jose, with four of them occurring in my small neighborhood alone. Here are some of the top ways to prevent burglaries in your home and your neighborhood:

1. Don’t showboat.

Leaving valuables out in your frontyard or a new flat screen TV in plain sight from the road, can unwittingly lure thieves onto your property just like a frantic bargain hunter is lured to a flea market. The thief is always out shopping for loot. Don’t make it easy for them by letting them know what you have. Dont’ leave your garage door open for extended periods of time.

2. Don’t put up the “Out for Lunch” or “On Vacation” sign.

Burglars only want to break into your home when they know you are not there. Protect yourself by creating the illusion you are home even when you are not. Leave a radio or TV on. Buy a ten dollar timer from your local hardware store and have lamps on at night when you are gone (energy efficient florescent bulbs of course). Stop mail and newspaper subscriptions while on vacation.

3. Lock your doors and windows.

I once asked a burglar why he chose the house he did. His response was, he didn’t, it chose him. After tugging on four or five doors/windows in the neighborhood he went with the one that was open. Most home breakins are more like “walkins” requiring very little force or none at all. Invest in quality deadbolts and locks. Use wood or steel dowels in sliding doors and windows. Don’t forget about upstairs windows. It’s not hard for a burglar to climb up an air conditioning unit or a left out ladder and enter your second story window. Burglars know to look under the front mat for a hide-a-key. Leaving your spare house key in common hiding places is like leaving milk and cookies out for neighborhood thieves. Lock it up.

4. Make your yard welcoming to guests not thieves.

Keep the bushes and trees trimmed near your windows. Clutter and large items offer concealment and a chance to pry a window open in privacy. Make use of motion lights and other outdoor lighting. A well maintained yard brings more friends over and keeps more crooks out.

5. Get to know your neighbors.

Knowing who belongs in your neighborhood, will help you to recognize those who don’t. Take notice of suspicious persons and note license plates and vehicle descriptions. Take a proactive approach to keeping yourself safe and let the police help keep predators out of your neighborhood. SJPD is available to help with this. Gather a group of ten neighbors and make arrangements for a crime prevention specialist to meet with your group. You can contact the SJPD crime prevention unit at (408) 277-4133 or log on to the SJPD website.

6. Use an alarm system.

A well maintained residential alarm system can make a burglar passup your house. Monitored systems are great and alert the police of a breakin when you are not home. A system that does not have a paid monitoring service can be very effective as well. Inexpensive systems are available that make that same high pitch noise as the expensive ones and scare the burglar off just the same. An alarm sign strategically placed in your yard might be all it takes to keep the crook moving along.

The reality is that some burglaries will still occur despite our best efforts made at preventing them. Taking the time to implement as many preventative measures as possible can help to keep you safe. In part three we will continue to work together to catch crooks with efforts taken before a breakin and after. Stay tuned and help San Jose Police Officers as they work to return San Jose to being the safest big city in America.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop

Nightmare On My Street

By Beat Cop

Part one of a three part series

Picture this...

You are returning home after a long day at work. While driving down your street you discover your garage door is open. “Hmmm, I must have left it open when I left this morning”, you think to yourself. This self talk provides a few moments of comfort as you pull in the driveway.

Scanning the front of the house, you notice the side gate is open. This is not getting any better. A quick phone call to your spouse confirms nobody has been home all day. You walk into the garage and notice the door leading into the house is partially open. Reality sets in. Someone has broken into your home...

The Reality

In our city, with a population of almost 1 million, the San Jose Police Department investigates over 4,000 burglaries a year with only 7 detectives assigned to the burglary unit. Eight consecutive years of cuts to the public safety budget are bound to affect you as a victim of this type of crime.

In 1986, with a population of approximately 700,000, San Jose Police had 13 burglary detectives and a 16-person burglary suppression unit. Since that time, the city has eliminated the entire burglary suppression unit and cut investigators almost in half.

The city projects that by the year 2020 the population will have increased to 1,150,000. More people and more housing will undoubtedly lead to a rise in burglaries. There does not however, seem to be any plan to increase the amount of burglary investigators.

The case load of every burglary detective does not even come close to making a dent in the amount of cases going through the unit. The lack of adequate personnel prevents most burglaries from even being investigated. With the public safety budget getting cut every year, non-violent property crimes receive less attention. Understandably violent crimes continue to take priority with investigators. For the victims of home burglaries, this is of little consolation.

The Good News

On the bright side, SJPD takes great pride in our professionalism. An overly-abundant case load will not make a detective care for your case any less. There does, however, exist the undeniable reality that an impossible workload reduces the time allotted for each incident.

Thankfully, Chief Davis understands our staffing shortfalls and is working with the City Council to staff SJPD at appropriate levels for a city of this size. Until that happens, we will do the best with what we have. As always, call us, we will be there.

As members of your San Jose Police Department, we want to get involved. We want to catch the person or persons responsible just as badly as you do. With your help, and our expertise, we have a good chance.

Most importantly, let us go inside first to make sure no one is still there — this is why we have guns. Once inside, we will start the collection and preservation of evidence for future prosecution. All patrol officers are trained in evidence collection. You are welcome to watch although don’t expect the process to look like an episode of CSI. It’s actually slow and meticulous, not glamorous, but very important.

Finally, we will work with you and your neighbors to offer our expertise in burglary prevention. There are steps members of the community can take to help protect themselves from burglaries and help the police catch the crooks.

Working together, we can reduce the number of burglaries that occur and arrest more of the people responsible for them.

I’ll tell you more about this in future articles.

Proudly serving you,
Your Beat Cop