What Melanie says is very important to be answered carefully. Its essential to realise that OPS only have a limited manpower and mainly react after incidents happen. The police also generally respond after being called and we hope both will improve their service effectiveness.
What also needs to be clear is that the would be criminals are around in our streets waiting to see any opportunity. They do not work their way down one street. Its unpredictable where they will strike! What is predictable is that if every incident is only noticed much later they get away and do it again. Only if they get caught IN THE ACT by trained security having sufficient evidence will they get put away and we can be sure they wont all be caught and they dont stay inside for very long. Everyone in Obs needs to know exactly how to respond immediately ... not to interfere or even to indicate they have been noticed. We need to phone OPS who should be close at hand and where appropriate call the police car in our area. We need to get evidence like car registration, descriptions of people, clothing, goods stolen and where possible take photos. If we see it we can report it and they will get caught very soon! Others can say more. Marc From: Melanie Hoffman Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 4:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [obsnw] Lower Obs (other side of the Railways) very concerned What exactly are patrols by civilians going to achieve? We live here, we don't want to play "pretend police" by driving around or walking around at night. We pay Obsid, we pay rates. It's Obsid job to put up the freaking horse carts (not just one!) and have professionals deal with the crime. What are you going to do when you see an armed robbery? Interfere? Call the police? The criminals will still get away. With all due respect, the "patrolling" has a slight taste of playing cowboys and robbers for me. These are professional dangerous criminals that need to be dealt with professionally. Neighbours patrolling is not the answer in my opinion. Plus, it's ridiculous that we would even have to do that. Get more horse carts. Put up a makeshift boom for the moment - if its' illegal - who cares, robbing and mugging is double illegal. Make obsid do something for us with our money. Why can't we have a "sting" operation with the police. I'll walk down the road showing my cellphone and carrying a laptop bag. I will surely get mugged, and the police could arrest them on the spot. End of story. Please, not more Obs Neighbourhood Watch meetings, groups, votings, signups and all the rest. It never worked before, because it's just a handful of people who want to do that kind of thing. Plus the ONW covered a large area. Street by street whatsapp works well. We don't need the whole suburb to know our business. It gets too complicated and people simply clash. This is my humble opinion. M Hoffman On 21 June 2015 at 15:16, Robby Balona <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Bruno Come and join us patrol the sectors. We have a few patrol groups and are try our best to keep the crime down. Although we are not crime fighters and are not mandated as the poilce,visibility helps as you have noted with the horse boxes. I like you, also get upset at the fact that we pay every month and feel that its not helping and this is why we patrol our sectors. The more we all get involved th3 better Let me know if you would like to join us and i can notify when we go out to patrol. You get to know your neighbourhood as well as ur neighbours Regards Robby On 21 Jun 2015 1:36 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Bruno...... I feel your pain, things are getting bad, and there is only so many police and guards available. I was willing to patrol - (fight the crime), but I was told no guns, so sorry man. . . . Hope you come right with more (guards). Paul Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruno Migliorini <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 00:19:41 -0700 (PDT) To: <[email protected]> ReplyTo: [email protected] Subject: [obsnw] Lower Obs (other side of the Railways) very concerned Hi, Every house in Obs pays the same amount every month for Improvement district. Our side of Obs used to be very quiet and somehow reasonable in regards with crimes (a few car break ins, mugging the tunnels under the rails). In the past 6 months, things have gone wild over here: stolen cars, armed muggings, house break-ins, etc. Our wives and kids are not safe anymore! This week only, two armed robberies occurred 20 meters from my house, people got guns pointed at them, nearly same place, twice in a week, at 6pm! Since a year, we have hosted the horse box with security during 4 weeks. That is all in regards with crime prevention in our zone. And it worked perfectly well as all went quiet for 4 weeks. All we get is reactive actions... Wait to face the gun, pray to stay alive, but don't worry OBSID will help you fill the paperwork! I sincerely think OBSID needs to have more power, more patrols, more horse boxes, more contribution from the Citizen. In my own case, the past six months did cost about 60000 ZAR of stolen goods and windows replaced. Hence 10000 ZAR/month!!! I am definitely happy to increase OBSID fee by 100 or 200 or 500 Rands to avoid that in the future. Regards, Bruno -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPS [Obsid Public Safety] - 24/7 control room TEL: 021-447-1066 or 072-063-1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCIES: 10111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ONW email: [email protected] WEB: www.obswatch.org.za FACEBOOK: facebook.com/obswatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Useful Obs Numbers: obs.org.za/obsdir You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups The Observatory Neighbourhood watch group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mailto:obsnw%[email protected]. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/obsnw?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPS [Obsid Public Safety] - 24/7 control room TEL: 021-447-1066 or 072-063-1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCIES: 10111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ONW email: [email protected] WEB: www.obswatch.org.za FACEBOOK: facebook.com/obswatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Useful Obs Numbers: obs.org.za/obsdir You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups The Observatory Neighbourhood watch group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mailto:obsnw%[email protected]. 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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPS [Obsid Public Safety] - 24/7 control room TEL: 021-447-1066 or 072-063-1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCIES: 10111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ONW email: [email protected] WEB: www.obswatch.org.za FACEBOOK: facebook.com/obswatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Useful Obs Numbers: obs.org.za/obsdir You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups The Observatory Neighbourhood watch group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mailto:obsnw%[email protected]. 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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Melanie Hoffman Tel: +27-722161416 (Mobile) -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPS [Obsid Public Safety] - 24/7 control room TEL: 021-447-1066 or 072-063-1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCIES: 10111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ONW email: [email protected] WEB: www.obswatch.org.za FACEBOOK: facebook.com/obswatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Useful Obs Numbers: obs.org.za/obsdir You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups The Observatory Neighbourhood watch group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OPS [Obsid Public Safety] - 24/7 control room TEL: 021-447-1066 or 072-063-1653 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCIES: 10111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ONW email: [email protected] WEB: www.obswatch.org.za FACEBOOK: facebook.com/obswatch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Useful Obs Numbers: obs.org.za/obsdir You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups The Observatory Neighbourhood watch group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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