Communicating a crime or possible criminal activity to your neighbors

Review some of the measures to take in order to fight crime back.

Be Safe

Don’t put yourself in harm’s way or engage the suspect to gather more details about the situation. Your safety is paramount.
Call 9-1-1

If you feel that a crime may be occurring, or that the safety of you or your neighbors may be at risk, don’t hesitate to call 911. Keep in mind that calls to 911 will be prioritized and triaged based on availability of law enforcement, so you shouldn’t worry that you may be using up valuable resources.

Even if you are unsure as to what is going on, the best thing to do is to let the police investigate. When the Police catch someone in the act breaking into a home, or stealing something, it is not unusual that one person is responsible for multiple other crimes in a neighborhood, and once caught, crime will decrease.
Questions to ask

1. What – focus on the behavior that raised your suspicion. Describe the potentially criminal or dangerous activity you observed or experienced–what the person was doing, what they said (if they spoke to you). Include the direction they were last headed.
2. Who – give as full a description as possible of the person, people or vehicles involved. Include as many details as possible–age, height, weight, hair, clothing, and identifiable marks, not just sex and race. For vehicles, make, model, plate, and direction of travel are helpful.
3. Where – location matters. Provide specific streets or intersections whenever possible. If the location is in a large area such as a park, provide a landmark within that location where the incident occurred (e.g., “at Rogers Park, next to the restrooms”).

What behaviors do police consider to be suspicious?

Please note: While the below behaviors have been known to be consistent with criminal activity, it is entirely possible that there is a simple explanation for what you are seeing. For example, a person observed trying the handles of vehiclesmay be misinformed as to which car belongs to a friend or family member; a person observed loitering within a park may be a neighbor’s relative making a phone call before heading inside.

Consider the context. Take, for example, the person sitting in a parked car across the street. During the day, someone might pull over to make a phone call or send a text message and then take off. At night, the context has changed, especially if the lights in the vehicle are off in a residential neighborhood.
Police associate these behaviors with potential criminal activity:

• Someone walking down the street looking into multiple vehicles, and/or trying door handles to see if the doors will open.
• Someone walking up to and stepping onto your or multiple of your neighbors’ porches and/or taking a package.
• A person who is not your neighbor walking about your neighbor’s home and looking into windows, or trying to gain access by forcing open a window or door.
• A person knocking on your door and asking to speak with someone who does not live there and who may also go to other homes knocking on doors. This is a tactic used by people with the intent to burglarize to see if people are home.
• Someone claiming to represent a utility company who is either not wearing a uniform or does not produce identification upon your request.
• Someone using binoculars to look into your or your neighbors homes.
• At night, a person sitting inside a vehicle that you do not recognize with the lights off for more than a few minutes.
• A pushy salesperson offering a deal too good to be true, asking to come into your home, or not producing identification upon your request.
• A vehicle you do not recognize that is circling multiple times around the neighborhood.
• A constant flow of people coming and going from a particular home and visiting for just a couple minutes.
• If you feel you are being followed walking home or to a neighbor’s home, and you cross the street to the other side and back again and the person(s) following cross along with you.
• “Sales crews” selling products door to door saying they need to make a quota, but the criminal activity is not what you might think. These salespeople are often victims of labor traffickers and can be reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline 1 (888)373-788

Why is giving a full description so important?

In the rush of posting about something concerning, many people identify the person involved simply by sex and race. This is a problem for a couple of reasons:

1. It doesn’t give your neighbors much to go on
2. It casts suspicion on every person of that sex and race who may legitimately be in or live in your neighborhood.

For example, if you saw this post, how would you know who to be on the lookout for? Suspicious car in neighborhood: Black male in blue ford sedan doing drive-bys on Shelby Street, near my house at 52 Shelby. Didn’t get a photo of the car. Never seen this car before. Keep eyes open.
Or in this one:
Look out for suspicious male: There is a black guy, early twenties, walking up and down Arden Avenue, wearing blue jeans and a black hoodie. Please be on the lookout.

The post below describes a behavior that is known to be consistent with criminal activity (trying door handles of multiple cars) and does a better job of helping your neighbors be on the lookout for a special person rather than a whole race of people, and makes sure that some other Hispanic male who happens to be walking down the street doesn’t get pulled over when the police arrive.

Guy checking door handles on Oak and Main: Earlier today at 3:00 pm, I witnessed suspicious behavior on Main and Oak streets. What I observed was a guy walking down Main street looking into vehicles and trying the door handles of multiple cars. He was a tall Hispanic male and was wearing dark blue jeans, a red t-shirt, Nike sneakers, he had a scar on his right arm. I called 911 and reported what I saw.

Source: Nextdoor