Decatur PD: Note on Windshield is “Proper Procedure”
Decatur Metro | May 10, 2011 | 1:58 pmFollowing up on the post from this morning, Decatur Deputy Chief Keith Lee replied…
Entering autos is consistently one of the most frequent crimes reported in the City of Decatur. All officers of the Decatur Police Department are required to be proactive in their patrol activities, so that crimes can be prevented. That being said, officers should not enter a vehicle unless an articulable reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed exists. Without knowing all the details of this specific incident, I cannot say the officer was correct or incorrect in his/her actions. If the officer did not suspect a crime had occurred, the proper procedure would have been to leave the “safety check notice” on the windshield of the car. We are checking into this incident and if we find the officer erred in his/her procedures, it will be corrected.
If the person who received this notice would contact either Captain Richards or me, we could discuss this particular incident.
I wish Atlanta cops had the resources to be pro-active like this. I don’t think the officer erred at all. I think the citizen is lucky the car wasn’t stolen. If it were he or she would complain loudly to the cops about their car being stolen. It’s like telling someone to buckle their seat belt.
If they wanted the car, locked doors would make no difference. However, if I were a thief, I sure would find it convenient to just look around for the cars with a blue sticker on it. Sounds like an Open for Business sign to me.
Given the frequency of these checks, how long would a criminal have to stake out a street before it just happened to be the street DPD decided to check. A month? A year or more? That doesn’t sound all that convenient to me. Wouldn’t it be easier for them to just hit the street of their choice and check the door handles themselves?
This is an icing-on-the-cake situation. Of course they’re not going to stake out streets until a blue sticky note appears. The fact is, many crimes are crimes of opportunity: An unattended purse, a laptop in plain view on a car-seat, a blue sticky note, and, yes, an unlocked door.
Let’s just say it will be impossible for me to not laugh the first time I see the combination of a blue sticky note and a robbed automobile. Even better if the thief leaves his/her own yellow thank you sticky.
Yes, trespassing and unlawful entry are just like telling someone to buckle their seat belt.
My friend didn’t feel the cop was being proactive. She felt s/he was walking many feet onto her driveway without cause, peering into her car without justification, opening the door of her car without reason and leaving a note on the steering wheel. Sorry.; I know the Patriot Act eroded my civil liberties, but not quite this much. If I want to leave my car vulnerable to thieves, that’s my business (but I am also one of those bad people who thinks it’s no one’s business if I as an adult chooses not to wear a seat belt).
I too am in favor of fierce protection of civil liberties, but are the police in this instance saying that the owner must lock his/her car – or just advising that it would be safer to do so? Did the police search the car? Did the police do anything other than a favor of turning off the interior light and leaving a note of suggestion? Again, if the DP were gathering evidence or searching these cars and using the results to charge people with crimes, it would be an absolute no-no, but encouraging safer behavior (particularly if we are free to ignore it) seems less troublesome. But I also see that there is a slippery slope here – what if they checked your car as a courtesy, saw contraband that they could do nothing with (due to no probable cause for the look in the first place) but put your name on a list to keep tabs on…. I am inclined to think they are not doing so, and I do like the DP and LOVE that they keep close tabs on the traffic speed on Clairemont Rd. in the morning as kids are on the way to school!!
Check Deputy Chief Lee’s explanation on the other thread.
Where did you get the idea they were turning off an interior light? Regardless, this us a program Of the Decatur police, not a one off. There was no light on and the officer crossed her driveway to get to her car to check it. Decatur police have no business doing this and I am appalled at how many think this sort of thing is okay
On the other thread apparently Chief Deputy Lee is reporting that the officer claims there was an interior light on. That sounds reasonable—unless others have experienced the sticker on the steering wheel warning.
“(but I am also one of those bad people who thinks it’s no one’s business if I as an adult chooses not to wear a seat belt)”
Veering off topic, but can’t help myself. As somebody who buckles her seat belt to move the car around in the driveway (not always, but I’m pretty rigorous wearing it), I sure would hate to bleed out because ER personnel are tied up taking care of somebody who sustained gory injuries because they exercised their freedom not to buckle up. Nellie, I suspect you wear your seat belt and are simply making a point about individual liberty. But my point is that there are really very few ways in which we can take personal risks without imperiling other people, too.
And, just to wander back toward the thread, the more careless people on a given street are about securing their premises and belongings, the more worthwhile that territory becomes for criminals to cruise. So, while choosing not to lock your car is your business, but in a way and to a degree, it’s also my business if I’m your neighbor. (Not you, Nellie, I mean the rhetorical “you.”) Which is not to say I don’t get the indignance about overzealous policing. It doesn’t seem to me like evidence of a burgeoning police state, though.
“So, while choosing not to lock your car is your business, but in a way and to a degree, it’s also my business if I’m your neighbor. ”
Sorry, but I disagree. As many people have pointed out, a locked door is little deterrence for a criminal, and may only result in a broken window. The comparison to seat belts does not hold up. The cost/benefit ratio is entirely different, for one thing. Plus, we do not have a Constitutional right to drive, but we do have a right to be left alone on our own property.
Please stay out of my car, everyone!
Stay out of my car. It doesn’t have power locks, so I leave nothing in there of value. It saves me the deductible for the broken window!
I think the basic disagreement is with Deputy Chief Lee’s assertion that the officer followed “proper procedure.”
Proper procedure, IMO, is ringing the doorbell and alerting the homeowner, especially since the vehicle was located on PRIVATE PROPERTY. If the vehicle is parked on the street, I can see where an officer MIGHT have justification to open and enter the vehicle.
So, the police lose either way. If you knock on the door and get people up at 4:30 AM, they’re upset at that. I know for a fact that there was a similar car-lights-on-and-door-unlocked situation a few years ago and, rather than locking it and leaving a note, the owner was called. In that case, they were upset at having to get out of bed to answer the phone.
As for private property or not, in this case the officer was trying, based upon their observation of the situation, to determine whether a crime had been committed or not. That would be the same regardless of where the car was.
Imagine for a minute that the owner knew that she had left the car unlocked, as it seems many people in the neighborhood do, came out in the morning and found it locked. She would reasonably think that someone had been messing with her car. I think it would go down much better if the sticker was there so she would know who it was, rather than no sticker, in which case she might have called the police anyway. And, as I said before, why didn’t she call anyway when she found the sticker and get an explanation?
Chances are if the light was on than someone had been in the car, and in the driveway, before the police officer! No one seems to be concerned by that. Also, if the light was on in the car, the door may have been open. People who open unlocked cars and rifle through contents don’t close the door to avoid the slamming noise. I have come out to a car with a dead battery before due to this practice. I think the police officer was simply trying to assess if the driver was okay and whether or not property had been stolen. Once the officer saw that everything looked okay they chose to leave a note rather than wake someone up in the middle of the night. That seems resonable to me. I think we should give our officers the benefit of the doubt. I have always had very positive experiences. I don’t think they’re out to get us or violate our rights.
Can someone please tell me why we are criticizing the police that help keep our four square miles safe?
(Yes, I can read. And yes, I have read the above and the other thread. Seems like more people want to complain than applaud their efforts).