By Roger Knox - Vernon Morning Star Published: October 30, 2008
The sharp eyes of Vernon’s Citizens On Patrol group are helping recover a number of stolen vehicles from the region. The volunteer organization, which works under the Safe Communities Unit, has helped recover 29 stolen vehicles this year, including four over the past two weekends. Members are given cell phones for their volunteer shift, they monitor police radios, and they are each given Palm Pilots. On that device, Citizens On Patrol download the licence plate numbers of all stolen vehicles weekly in B.C. from ICBC computers.As they drive by a plate, they can run the information on the Palm Pilot to determine if the vehicle is stolen.One volunteer couple has been extremely busy and successful locally.
On a recent Saturday morning, the pair spotted a stolen vehicle in the parking lot of a local restaurant at 2 a.m. Police were called and two occupants were taken into custody.The same volunteer pair, while off duty, located another stolen vehicle whose description had been given out and called police. The following weekend, the same couple spotted a stolen Sunbird on Okanagan Avenue and called police, who were able to pull the car over near the downtown Safeway.Three people in the car were taken into custody with the female driver charged with possession of stolen property.
No comments:
Post a Comment