Wicomico Neighborhood Congress

While a sense of community ownership is a key to crime prevention, there are several other resources available to communities for crime prevention. Two key resources for community crime watch are:
Additionally, there is a wealth of information on the following websites:

If you see something suspicious occurring, be a good witness and call the authorities immediately

If you witness an event, what should you try to remember? What makes a "good witness?" Consider the following:
• Get the car's license plate number - Whether a person witnesses a hit and run accident, a drive-by shooting or a criminal's get-away car, the most important information is the license plate number. If you see the license plate number, write it down immediately. If pen and paper are not immediately available, enter the information into a cell phone, use a stick to write the license plate number in the dirt - get creative. The license plate number is the single best piece of information a witness can provide to police when a car is involved in an accident or crime.
• Try to remember permanent characteristics like tattoos, scars, skin color and height - While it's helpful in the short term to know what a suspect was wearing at the time of a crime, this information is only helpful in the minutes immediately following the crime or accident. What's more valuable is information on permanent, unchangeable characteristics. In particular, focus on elements that distinguish a suspect, like skin color, height, scars, a tattoo, an unusual nose shape, a lisp, and other extremes in appearance.
• Use memory devices to remember important information you're witnessing - Is the suspect's car similar in make and model to your mother's? Was the hit and run driver's skin color darker than your own but lighter than your friend's? Can you make a song or rhyme out of the letters in a get-away car's license plate number? Try to compare what you're witnessing to things that are familiar to you. Or make new information familiar to you by using memory tricks.
What to Do After Witnessing a Violent Crime or Accident

There are certain measures that a witness should take immediately following the crime, accident or other incident that they've witnessed:

• Immediately call 911 - The more time that elapses after a crime occurs, the less likely it is that the crime will be solved. Don't wait to call police; call immediately and provide them with whatever information you have on the crime or accident that you witnessed.
• Write down what you remember - Immediately following the crime or accident, write down each and every detail that you can remember. Don't wait for the police to arrive; start recording what you've witnessed immediately because memories can fade significantly in a matter of just a couple of minutes. If you don't have a pen and paper, call your cell phone's voicemail (or the voicemail of a friend or family member) and record as many details as you can recall.
• Don't talk to other witnesses - Witnesses to a crime, accident or other incident can easily become "contaminated" by speaking to other witnesses thanks to the power of suggestion. This makes the witness' memories unreliable and much less valuable to investigators. Never speak to other witnesses or victims until you (and the other witness/victim) have been debriefed by police.

 

http://www.mdsp.org/
http://www.salisburypd.com/
http://cityoffruitland.com/
http://www.delmarpolice.com/

http://www.wicomicostatesattorney.com/
http://www.wicomicocounty.org/