County’s top cops announce new ‘Report It’ program

County’s top cops announce new ‘Report It’ program

Allen: ‘ I can’t begin to tell you how much better it is for investigators’

news@theeveningtimes.com

The three county top cops in the county sang in unison the praises of “Report It” on Thursday afternoon. Crittenden County Sheriff Mike Allen, Marion Police Chief Gary Kelley and West Memphis Police Chief Donald Oakes recommended the citizen property inventory service from the web site Leads Online. According to the trio, each department has subscribed to the system and solved stolen property cases. They urged citizens to inventory valuables and participate in the program.

Sheriff Allen stressed that the free online program is safe and secure. All the information is pass code protected using the same security levels as online banking called the Secure Socket Layer network connection.

While each law enforcement agency pays a fee to participate, the program comes at no cost to citizens. The local police departments have been using it for ten years to recover stolen property and renewed the call to citizens to participate.

“Nobody expects to be the victim of a property crime, but if it does happen having a picture, description or serial number helps your insurance claim and goes a long way linking detectives to the thief through the stolen property,” said Allen. “I can’t begin to tell you how much better it is for investigators to have information like this. Knowing details about what you own is often the difference between recovering or not recovering stolen property.

Pictures help police locate your items before they vanish for good.”

Report It helps property owners be prepared in the event of a theft or loss.

Being proactive by compiling your property inventory online allows you to catalog information about your valuables and give owners instant access to key information to hand to investigators. Collectibles, guns, jewelry, machines, power tools, lawn equipment designer clothing and hand bags can be listed. Items may be added or deleted anytime.

Information is accessible only by the owner who hands it over as part of the information to help investigate the theft. Participants can log up to one hundred items each. Police cannot access items in your personal catalog. Police work the other side Report IT called Leads Online. Scrap metal recyclers and pawn shops submit who they do business with them and the items involved. Pawn brokers provide serial numbers on guns for instance. If the weapon was reported stolen detectives are flagged with the details of who dealt the weapon.

“We have an ordinance to have any second hand store like a pawn shop or scrapper to upload all the information,” said Chief Oakes.

“They make the required reports and we are able to search and query it. It’s worked out well.”

Leads like this have solved local cases.

“The quicker the property is entered into the National Data Crime Base (NCIC) the chance of law enforcement recovering your stolen items gets better,” said Allen. “We solved numerous cases with Leads Online,” said Chief Kelley. “It’s been a very valuable tool to us for ten years.”

Pawn shops and scrappers aren’t the only partners.

Ebay transactions lead West Memphis Police to solve nearly $20,000 worth of missing inventory from a store. The manager went out the back door with items and had his wife fence it on Ebay. The two were tracked down through Leads Online.

The law men urged citizens to list their valuables at www.reportit.leadsonline.

com.

By John Rech