BELTON (July 10, 2013) –Belton Police are taking their crime prevention efforts into cyberspace with a new program called BPD E-Watch.
Business and residents can sign up to receive monthly crime reports, crime alerts, crime prevention messages and community service messages.
The neighborhood alerts are broken into three districts so residents can sign up for alerts in the areas in which they live.
“Belton also uses their Facebook and Twitter to post some crime and traffic alerts, but this will make it more geographic to the area to where your business is or your home is,” police Chief Gene Ellis said.
“It’s divided into the three patrol districts that the police department has here in Belton.”
Those that sign up can get text or email messages or both. “We are a very proactive department,” said Ellis.
“Our guiding principles in our strategic plans are prevention safety and quality of life. A big component of that involves a community.
We cannot do it alone.” So they reached out to the community through a different communication tool, cell phones and computers.
Belton Police still have the “old neighborhood watch,” which is still a viable program. Ellis said, but he wants to move all of the neighborhood watch communities into the electronic age.
The goal of the program is to get the communities to help when a crime is committed.
“We can send a crime alert out to not only get their help to capture the person that’s involved or responsible for that, but also to get their help in preventing future crimes,” Ellis said.
In a recent crime alert, Belton PD encouraged residents to hide their valuables and lock their cars and take their keys.
This was in response to some vehicle burglaries.
“We actually got a little bit of information back and we are real close to an arrest on a burglary of motor vehicles case we recently put out,” said Ellis.
Police also wanted to focus on the business aspect of crime prevention too.
“There may be crimes that only affect businesses, such as fraud or a scam and so the Belton PD wanted to reach out,” Ellis said.
“By signing up for E-Watch, they can get that information quickly and try to not become a victim and even help us identity the person responsible.”