How To Get Police Response in Under 8 Minutes

A concerned citizen recently got an onsite police response within 8 minutes. This was before a crime even happened! Here is how they did it.

1) They put an alert of suspicious activity on Lightcatch
2) The location they chose appears on the map screen of Lightcatch.
3) The description matched the location.
4) The officer saw they were close by and toured the area. 
5) The officer reported the area as all clear and there was no sight of the suspect anymore.

The really nice thing about this alert was that all of this activity was time stamped for the hundreds of people in the area to know policing support was there helping keep the community safe!

The official time stamps in Lightcatch showed the incident was created at 8:37am.
The responding officer reported being on the scene at approx 8:45am.

This jurisdiction has a history of responding proactively like this and this is just one more win for everyone.

I believe there would be many happier home owners if they knew they could get a police officer to be at the scene helping stop crime before it happens more often.

Here is how to improve police response times

• The majority of property owners with security cameras can not respond this quickly.  Ensure your property has no security flaws.  Go to score.lightcatch.net to see how to remove those critical failure points.
  
• Create the alert on Lightcatch if there is no immediate threat to your safety. 
• Call 911. Call 911 first if you are in danger. (Creating an alert takes between 30 seconds-2 minutes, calling 911 can take several minutes. The order is which to call is best left to the person’s judgement.)
• When the responding officer contacts you forward them screenshots of what is on Lightcatch.
• When the community updates more information about the suspects actions or new location forward that to the responding officer and or 911.

The response times of police services will improve as members learn the community is providing them quality information that helps them do their jobs better.

Make it even better

Where this took place the Holborn Rural Crime Watch, Greater Wabumun Lake Representatives, Stony Plain & District Crime Watch and other organizations have been great supporters of using Lightcatch to better support police work within Parkland County. 

This support led to the Spruce Grove RCMP Liason Officer being familiar with Lightcatch and bringing it to the Parkland County Enforcement Services Department. 

The leadership within Parkland County Enforcement Services brought some initiatives before Council and the Council approved those recommendations.

A lot of people wonder ‘Well I don’t have all that RCMP recognition where I live.’ In my opinion having any kind of official partnership with a local police service isn’t necessary.  There are far more important steps.  Those steps home owners can control. 

Sending the responding officer a screenshot of the incident and good images make their job much easier that a typical 911 call. They don’t need Lightcatch to get that information as you can be the source.