Sheriff Takes Holiday Watch to New Heights
Hitting the mall? While you’re keeping an eye out for holiday bargains, bad guys are keeping an eye out for you, your cars and especially your shopping bags.
Fortunately, the Sheriff’s Department is keeping an eye out for the bad guys with Skywatch. It’s a contraption that looks like a cherry picker but carries sophisticated equipment such as a heat-sensing camera with high-power, high-resolution lenses.
The camera is mounted to the top of the cherry-picker type basket that is enclosed with bulletproof glass and features gun ports for more dangerous assignments like SWAT situations.
Amazingly enough, this camera can zoom in on people from hundreds of feet away and get a clear picture of them and even read a name tag. The camera can focus on vehicle license plates from a distance and using the night vision, detect weapons and other suspicious items hidden in bags or pockets. All this is recorded on DVD.
“That’s a nifty thing, a great deterrent,” said shopper Kyle Ferguson of Lakeside, who walked up to take a closer look at the Skywatch. “If a guy came around to break into a car and saw that, I’d change my mind, wouldn’t you?”
And that’s the whole idea. Stop the bad guys from even thinking about committing any crimes. Skywatch is part of Sheriff Bill Gore’s Holiday Watch campaign which includes additional patrols in neighborhoods, malls, parking lots and more.
“The whole goal of Holiday Watch is to reduce crime. We’re trying to take away the opportunity for the crooks to do crime,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Karl Miller, as he surveys the parking lot at the Wal-Mart and Vons shopping center in Lakeside from 30 feet above. “It’s also to make the citizens of the community feel safer.”
This particular day, at least four extra patrol cars were assigned to drive around the mall area. As soon as the deputies drove up to some of the outlying areas of the lot, several vehicles there immediately left. Panhandlers who normally set up shop at the entrances to the shopping center decided to leave on their own.
Last year, thefts increased countywide. This year, Skywatch operations are being set up at targeted areas that have seen an uptick in thefts. The crane-like contraption will go up at several different locations at different times during the month of December.
Deputy Miller says these thefts are usually crimes of opportunity; shoppers are so intent on getting inside the store and finding the perfect gift that they forget to lock their cars and leave shopping bags full of merchandise in plain view. Even if they do lock their cars, criminals with a slim jim tool can get into a car within 30 seconds. They’re especially interested in high end electronics like laptops, TVs, iPods, iPads, jewelry, and even loose change left in the vehicle.
Another problem arises when shoppers drop off shopping bags in the trunk of their car and go back inside the mall. Criminals watching you will wait until you walk away and then steal your belongings.
The Sheriff’s Department has used Skywatch the last four years and it will be back in operation at various shopping centers and malls this year through January 1.