Decatur City Commission Receives Robbery Investigations Update
Decatur Metro | April 17, 2013At Monday night’s City Commission, Asst. City Manager David Junger detailed the robberies that have occurred around the city since February 7th and the steps taken by Decatur Police to tackle the issue.
According to Mr. Junger’s presentation to the commission, DPDs response included implementation of a “robbery suppression plan” after the 4th robbery – and before the Wahoo! robbery – which included increased patrols around the central business district by off-duty officers, the Special Investigations Unit, the traffic unit and other DPD resources. They are also utilizing undercover officers and unmarked vehicles in their efforts to curb and investigate these robberies. Mr. Junger reiterated that DPD has met with the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association and with the employees of Wahoo! about the recent robberies and are planning more appearances at groups around town. All in all, DPD has worked over 200 hours of overtime to deal with this issue. Decatur will also be hosting a multi-agency meeting with Atlanta PD and DeKalb PD soon, to share information about these robberies and “make sure everyone is one the same page”.
Mr. Junger noted that other than the first two robberies on February 7th and 26th, Decatur Police don’t have reason to believe that any of the other robberies are connected, based on variations in descriptions by victims and other items of evidence.
“They are working hard on many, many leads” according to Mr. Junger, and the GBI have drawn up sketches of some of the suspects. (You can view sketches of suspects from the March 15th robbery along Commerce Drive and a security camera picture of a suspect in the Wahoo! robbery on crimestoppers.com.)
Commissioner Patti Garrett noted that DPD had mentioned the recent prevalence of cell phone ATMs (which Patch reported on recently) at the ONA meeting, as a potential reason in the uptick of cell phone robberies.
DPD is advising all residents to be more vigilant about their surroundings and be careful about when and where you use your cell phone around the city. Also, if you ever feel unsafe, DPD encourages residents to call the non-emergency # (404-373-6551) and they can escort you to your destination.
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Regarding those cell phone atms: Out of curiosity, I decided to try to sell an old Android phone I still had laying around. I wasn’t expecting to get much money, if any (this was an original Motorola Droid. Ancient in smart phone years). I was just interested in seeing how the process worked.
So I took the device to the ECOATM located at Northlake Mall. It was a very easy process. The machine scans your drivers license and, if you agree to sell your phone, takes a picture of you to match with your license. You also have to provide a thumb print. You don’t have to provide a phone number or any proof of ownership. It takes a few minutes to evaluate your device, and then you receive an offer. I got two bucks for my old phone.
Though the process is simple, I have my doubts about whether thieves would take a chance on selling stolen phones this way because they could probably get more money elsewhere. I suppose a desperate thief might.
According to what I’ve read, ECOATM tracks phones by serial numbers, so it might be a good idea to record that number and have it readily available to give to police in case of a theft.