South Bend police partnering with public to prevent crime
Block captains and cops in South Bend are calling on the community to have each other’s backs. Thursday they hosted a crime prevention meeting to share statistics from April to May.
“It’s just never gonna go away, it’s sad to say,” said Rum Village block captain Sal Gerschoffer.
While that may be true, South Bend police are hoping to continue to see more downward trends on their graphs.
“The more aware that people are with their neighborhoods and what’s going on, the better off we can be a partnership with the public to help combat these crimes that are occurring and hopefully make a dent in those,” said South Bend police patrolman James Burns.
“I don’t think people realize how good this is for the neighborhoods. We should have 50 people here,” said Gerschoffer.
Gerschoffer is talking about the South Bend PD’s monthly community crime prevention meetings where they share crime stats month to month.
From April to May, South Bend’s south region saw one more residential burglary and 12 more car thefts.
The east saw seven more burglaries and actually 12 fewer vehicle larcenies.
The last region provided, the west, saw nine more home burglaries and 14 fewer car thefts.
“On some of them, it has to do with people leaving their doors unlocked, leaving valuables in their cars, leaving their homes unsecured,” said patrolman Burns.
“If we can help each other out, it will help the police out, too,” said South end block captain, Roger Nimtz.
“What my wife says, due to the warm weather, bad guys are out, and that’s why there’s more crime, more burglaries,” said Gerschoffer.
“If you see things, happen to notice things and then don’t call police. You’re not helping your neighborhood out. Help us so we can help you,” said patrolman Burns.
The meetings are the first Thursday of every month, so police and community leaders are urging everybody to come learn about what’s going on in their neighborhood.