CPD talks with residents in southwest Columbia about property crime
Tuesday night Columbia Police Department heard from residents in southwest Columbia about concerns in their neighborhood.
One of the major topics tonight was the concern with the amount of property crimes in southwest Columbia.
Lt. Scott Young with Columbia Police told ABC 17 News, “we might not have the same amount of crime as other areas do with shootings, but the east side of Providence has a string of student apartments, because they just won’t lock their doors.”
Looking up data, in 2015 Columbia has seen 3,635 property crimes reported. While CPD admits property crimes won’t be the first priority on a call list, they will still go.
One resident brought up whether police preferred a report about property crime,Young said, “We would like to know what’s going on, if people give up on calling us we start to lose grasp of what’s going on and so I’d say please call us.”
Another topic of discussion was whether or not home burglary systems are helpful for Police, and CPD made it clear that even though they will still respond it does take away from their resources.
Police say in 2016; 3,736 home alarms calls were reported with only 1.7% being valid calls, and in 2015; 4,498 home alarm calls were reported with only 2.2% being valid calls.
Residents were pleased with the town hall discussion tonight. CPD says they hope to continue more town hall discussions in the future.
