By Gerry Dienel – Synopsis of Fire-Safety presentations 9-19-2015 Placitas Senior Center
• This meeting was sponsored by ES-CA, Eastern Sandoval Citizens Association and chaired by Ed, with brief presentation by Bob (ES-Ca president).
• ES-CA is a valuable organization that is very active in community activities, and it is heavily involved in dealing with the gravel mining, pipelines, and other issues that affect quality and safety of life in Placitas.
• If you want to be engaged, go to the website http://www.es-ca.org/ where you can get more information, join the association, and contribute to the community.
• You can also read and comment on current issues in the Forum section of the web site. You are encouraged to comment, since companies, government officials, and others involved with ES-CA also read this information and get a sense of community opinion.
1. David Bervin, Assistant Chief/ Emergency Management gave a nice talk discussing the organization and activities of the Sandoval county fire department, which is mostly volunteer. Two important points of interest:
• You can sign up for automated emergency notifications at http://www.sandovalcounty.com/home/CodeRed. Use this link and go to bottom of the page for sign up button. Alternatively, go to Sandoval county web page www.sandovalcounty.com scroll down to bottom of page see ‘Emergency Notices’ that has links for fire alert emails and code red notifications are at bottom center under ‘How May We Help You’. You can also get additional information about the fire department under the ‘Departments’ link.
• Be sure your house numbers are readily visible for emergency personnelSide roads in Placitas are sometimes hard to find and houses on corners may be listed as addresses on the main or side street. House numbers should be prominent and easily visible. Red reflective numbers that can be put on a post at the street-end of the driveway are available free at the Placitas Fire Station.
2. Allen Mills, Detective Sergeant, Sandoval County Sheriff office gave a very interesting discussion of crime in Placitas. Some major points:
• Placitas is a safe community. In 2012-2014 there were 12-16 residential burglaries per year in all of Placitas (vs. 59-62 in all of Sandoval County). Typical crimes are residential and vehicle burglaries, property damage (usually neighbor related), crimes against persons (most are family- or neighbor-related), and other low-frequency events.
• Most residential burglaries are “hit and run’ by people who come from somewhere else, make one or more hits, leave, and rarely return.
• Most thieves are not sophisticated; they are ‘low level’ opportunistic thieves. Very few are ‘smart planners’ who carefully case the place ahead of time, have informants to find out when you are not home, etc.
• Thieves who enter the house (open door or window, kick in door, or break window, etc) will quickly ‘toss’ the house within a few minutes, going through the bedroom, closets, cabinets, under mattress, shelves, and throughout the house.
• Do not keep large amounts of money, expensive jewelry, silver silverware, guns, or other valuables in the main house where thieves will likely easily find them. Thieves operate quickly and generally do not rummage through the garage, attic, basement.
• Before confronting a thief, consider that many thieves these days may be armed.
• Most incidents are opportunistic and involve the following:
A. Unlocked home or garage doors or windows, open windows, unlocked cars with items inside car or trunk and visible things in the car
B. Stolen cars (5 in 2014) were mostly unlocked, some with access to keys
C. Common sense precautions:
Lock houses and vehicles, close windows when asleep or gone
Close garage doors and lock cars when not in immediate area,
Set house alarms when not home. Some alarm systems have ‘stay’ functions that activate the door-window alarms without involving inside motion detectors and can be used at night when asleep or when home alone,
Lock gates or chains across driveway when not home,
Notify neighbors when traveling so you have ‘eyes’ on your property – have a local neighborhood watch, which can be an effective, local precaution
Be a ‘nosy neighbor’ – investigate unusual or abnormal activity, persons, vehicles, etc.
• If you see a crime in progress or suspicious activity – call a recorded sheriff phone line (so they have access to the information as needed) –
867-7526 or 911
• If you are traveling and wish to have periodic police patrols at your house, send your request to Allen Mills, email below.
• If you want advice from detectives on securing your property, contact Allen Mills who will arrange for a meeting with you, depending on available deputy time.
General advice from Detective Mills that has been appended to Neighborhood watch alerts:
• Please be alert for any suspicious persons and/or activity in our neighborhood.
• Please do not confront suspicious persons. Simply document as much information as you safely can (from a distance) that would aid the Sheriff’s Office in identifying the suspicious persons /activity: photos of license plate, car, descriptions of vehicle and people, etc.
• Look out for your neighbors – if they are traveling out of the area, please remove newspapers and blown trash from their driveways as these things are a sign that no one is home.
• Please report suspicious persons / activities to the Sheriff’s Office via the Sheriff’s non-emergency telephone number – 867-7526. The call leaves a record of the information as needed.
• If you know or suspect that a burglary or another crime is in progress, please immediately report it to the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office by dialing 911.