The APD Central West District Commander’s Forum happened tonight (Feb. 2) at McCallum High School. The school cafeteria was crowded with neighbors from all around Austin, attending to hear about local crime news.
Commander John Romoser (pictured at right) indicated that burglary of residences continues to be a general problem for the area in 2010. We are currently at 51 burglaries so far this year for the “Baker Sector” district, as compared to 43 last year. Note that Baker Sector is huge — running from The University of Texas to 183, and from I-35 to far out west — so those 51 burglaries are spread over a large area.
So far, APD has been unable to identify patterns to the crimes or locations. What they do know is that most occur during the daylight hours, while people are at work, and often involve kicking in a front or back door.
Some Good News
There is a bit of good news in all this. After the forum, I talked with our district representative Officer Rolando Gutierrez. He mentioned that while burglaries are up overall in the district, we’ve actually seen a drop-off in North Shoal Creek this past month. So please do keep alert, and coordinate with your neighbors.
APD requested that if you see any suspicious people or vehicles in the neighborhood, please go ahead and call 911. When you do observe suspicious activity, it will be important that you provide the best description you can of the people and the vehicles.
It was great to see so many NSC residents at the event, including Mary Arnett, Tom Byrne, Tomas Rodriguez and Roger Wines. (Please email president@nscna.org if I missed anybody.)
— Chip Rosenthal, NSCNA President
