WMPD looking to DETER rash of hotel break-ins

WMPD looking to DETER rash of hotel break-ins

Police Department stepping up patrols surveillance of local travel stops to thwart thieves

news@theeveningtimes.com

The Interstate interchange is the economic life blood of West Memphis. Whether it’s multi-modal logistics, distribution, or truck stops, trucking fills city tax coffers. Tourists use the Interstate 40 and 55 intersection to zig-zag the country.

Often those motorists stay the night in a hotel along the interstate and dine at nearby restaurants. Business owners know it and three hotels are being developed or under construction along the south side service road between 7th Street and Ingram Boulevard. The cops and robbers know about it, too.

“There is no doubt that the Interstate drives business in the city,” said West Memphis Police Chief Donald Oakes.

Vehicles parked overnight at hotels or over the dinner hour at restaurants have been targeted by thieves.

Hotel owners and police have noticed an upward trend in property crime.

The department met with hospitality leaders last week to develop a plan to fight crime that targets tourists. Hotel owners had been taking hits with negative comments on travel web pages to the point business slumped at some locations.

“We did this because of a significant spike in car breaking and entering over the past months,” said Captain Joe Baker. “We had noticed the crime and the business owners had noticed it due to losses in bookings and in revenue.

We met with hotel and business owners along the Interstate corridor about what they could do to better secure their property, lighting, video cameras. We will do walk-throughs of their property and make security suggestions.”

Police reported the results to its commission yesterday, defined the criminal activity to date, and laid out a plan to cut down the B& E crime.

Baker indicated the get away vehicles were hard to identify from video. One hotel had the sheriff department mobile Sky Cop for surveillance. Other businesses have turned over surveillance video to the cops to view. What have they found?

“A large number are vehicles stolen in Memphis and used here to commit these crimes with either fictitious drive off tags, stolen plates or no tags at all,” said Baker. “That makes it harder to identify these people. So the video is not as useful as it would be if the plates really belonged to the cars. So we are going to pump more physical presence into the area.”

The Police Department effectively cut violent crime with saturation patrols and a Sky Cop camera during Operation DETER (Data Enhanced Targeted Enforcement and Restoration) along South Avalon in the city beginning last summer. If it worked before, it should work again said Baker. The Advertising and Promotions Commission that handles the tourism tax allotted funds for four new Sky Cops for the police department to position in the busy tourist areas. The police now plan a focused fight against property crime along the tourist heavy Interstate corridor. The West Memphis police have a sophisticated crime analysis program that tells them what days of the week, times of the day and locations crimes occur.

“We are moving this DETER model to that corridor,” said Baker. “There will be an increased police presence with an increased amount of traffic stops.

These will be very focused, targeted stops based on the patterns in our data over the past months. The information helps us determine the most likely day of the week, time of the day. We also have quite a bit of video we’ve collected from these locations, so there are other things we are looking for specific to information we have about these offenders. So, we are going to

try this data-driven crime study and will monitor it monthly for decreased crime numbers.”

By John Rech