PUBLIC SAFETY
SPECIAL
crime
team
Police Chief
Billy Grogan
and Mayor
Mike Davis,
third and
fourth from
left, introduced members of the city’s new crime reponse team during
Dunwoody City Council’s May 28 meeting. From left, Officer Ken Peck,
Sgt. Jason Dove, Officer Dale Laskowski and Officer Jason Lewis.
Away for summer vacation?
Have police check your house
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Local police will check on empty homes
this summer to ease vacationers’ worries.
House-check programs are a free service
provided to citizens by police in which of
ficers periodically check homes for suspi
cious activity while residents are away.
While the Atlanta Police Department
does not offer the service, other local de
partments do, including the ones in Sandy
Springs and Dunwoody. And Brookhav-
en Police Chief Gary Yandura said he
plans to start a house-check program in
that city once his officers hit the streets
this summer.
The use of the house-check programs
increases over the summer and especial
ly on holidays, said Larry Jacobs, the
crime preventions specialist for the Sandy
Springs Police Department.
Sandy Springs police are usually check
ing on 40 to 50 houses each week in the
summer, a number that can double on
holidays, Jacobs said. Dunwoody police
check anywhere from 30 to 50 homes at
any one time during the holiday season,
Tim Fecht, the community outreach offi
cer for the Dunwoody Police Department,
said.
Although these checkups cannot guar
antee total safety, Fecht said the programs,
like a lot of police work, are beneficial be
cause they are proactive.
“One of the great things about it is that
you’re not only bringing the officers and
the volunteers to your house, but also in
your neighborhood,” Jacobs said.
Dunwoody police doing house checks
have caught potential “weak points” in
houses in the past, Fecht said. “It has hap
pened several times where we’ve found a
door unlocked and we call the homeown
er, and they’ll say ‘Oh, I forgot,”’ Fecht
said.
Fecht said he cannot remember a house
being broken into while on the house-
watch program. “It adds another layer of
security and comfort,” Fecht said, “and it’s
someone you can trust, so if something
were to happen, be it natural disaster or
criminal, we will be there.”
Residents of Sandy Springs can sign up
for the out-of-town house-check program
on the police department’s website. Resi
dents fill out a form, providing informa-
DUN
Want police officers to check
on your home while you’re
away? Here’s how to contact
them to request the service.
Sandy Springs:
www.sandyspringspolice.
org/forms/
OutOfTownRegistrationForm.
aspx
Dunwoody:
www.dunwoodyga.gov/
departments/dunwoody-
police-department/
Community-Outreach/
InteractiveDefense.aspx
tion such as the dates they will be away,
what types of cars are expected to be at
the home, alarm system information and
emergency contacts. Officers check the
houses each day as time permits.
Jacobs said: “911 calls are their first pri
ority, but in between answering 911 calls,
we ask that they check out these areas.
They look for anything suspicious, like a
door kicked in or a smashed window.”
When officers are busy, volunteers who
have gone through a police training pro
gram check on the houses. Both officers
and volunteers contact homeowners if
they see anything amiss.
Dunwoody offers a similar service. Res
idents can sign up through its neighbor
hood alerts system, known as Interactive
Defense.
“We do a perimeter check,” Fecht said.
“We walk around and make sure all the
doors and windows are secure, and every
thing looks good.”
Dunwoody police then communicate
to the absent homeowner whether or not
they discover anything out of the ordinary,
Fecht said.
“The officer can leave a note digitally
on the web saying everything looks secure,
and the homeowner can choose to receive
that message as a text or an email,” Fecht
said.
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