We recently identified a surprising advantage to being a member of the Silverton CPA - People see you carrying a radio!

After a recent spate of house burglaries the community was alerted during one of our daily signal tests to be on the lookout for potential burglars. One tactic employed by criminals is to drive through the streets, slowly, surveying the houses they pass for opportunities. They look for broken gates, windows without burglar bars, easily accessible properties and any other opportunity they can identify. Our members were asked to be on the lookout for such suspicious behaviour.

One of our members spotted a gold coloured BMW M3 parked near his home a few days after this warning went out. The occupants seemed to be surveying the houses within their view. After calling in to the radio controller on duty he was asked if he could obtain the number plate and more information that will make the vehicle easy to identify in future. Our radio controllers add this information to an incident register and a list of suspicious vehicles.

Brandishing the radio in one hand while talking to the radio controller and with patrollers on the way, our member approached the vehicle to be able to read the number plate. Once the occupants of the vehicle spotted him with radio in hand they quickly drove away.

We don't know if the people in the car thought he might be a police man, but it looked like they did not want anything to do with someone carrying a radio!