On Monday 18 January 2016 two young males were observed in the Waikawa car park scrutinizing at depth the notice board. When approached they headed off at great speed up Waikawa Beach Road in separate cars.
Details of the cars were: –
Red Holden Commodore Estate which appeared to have been lowered for street racing.
Silver Honda CSX. One of the drivers had a buzz cut.
In the past few weeks there have been a number of house break-ins reported. If you see anyone acting suspiciously such as driving slowly down the street, stopping to look inside open garages or strangers entering property which is obviously vacant, politely ask if they are looking for someone or can you help them. If you are uncomfortable about approaching anyone, obtain a description of the person and the car especially the registration number and pass this information to the Levin Police.
We, the residents of Waikawa Beach, are the best security for the area. If we all keep our eyes open, word will go out to the criminal fraternity that Waikawa Beach is full of old nosy parkers who are good at looking after other people’s business and property. Because of this these criminals will realise it is not worth the effort as they will be probably caught before they leave Waikawa Beach Road.
You are also encouraged to get to know your neighbours. The Association also has a database of contact numbers for members so that they can be contacted for information if suspicions are aroused.
CCTV installations is also a very proactive idea for residents to think about installing on their properties. I have CCTV installed 360 degrees on my property for the sake of my business, and over the years we have found the footage to be very useful indeed when we have thieves & vagabonds scoping our village purely to steal & sell what they can turn into a dollar from us. There have been times when we can go back over CCTV footage and grab vehicle & person descriptions if someone here has been burgled or vandalised. We have even managed to have arrested 3 people who were absolutely caught red-handed onsite removing property into their vehicle as we watched. Then there are the other instances where the CCTV have created the opportunity for us to “use our initiative” & act immediately on what we can see on the cameras knowing that the police simply cannot get here in time so we have “done what we had to do” to have the problems solved (and then we called the police to hand them over – a little worse for wear with injured knuckle-bones as a memento for stealing from us!) At the end of the day it is a very good idea for as many households to have CCTV installed & running continuously, show some cameras for the hoodies to see, but also hide a couple as well. If you do see “out of character” behaviour in your area, go out & eyeball the people so they know we are actively alert around here. If you are not comfortable to do this, then give us a call and we can send someone around, but the point being is we need to be united & proactive. I also have ten years of footage with both vehicle registrations and people descriptions with dates & times which come in handy for issues that are raised after the issue has happened. Ideally, it would be good if the ratepayers committee installed CCTV in key locations with someone to do monitors (Waitarere Beach is starting something similar at their beach). They have a camera at the front of their road by SH1 & the entrance to their village; this is a perfect setup scenario, well done team! I put my hand up for monitors if no one is available, or we could alternate this role to suit our times. It doesn’t take long for the hoodie to spread the word how “En-Guard” our community is once they find out the hard way we are watching their presence. Cheers everyone…Just saying…
I too have security cameras installed; however mine will not identify vehicles unless they enter my driveway.
I have cameras the WILL identify vehicles ….