Good Evening!
Portage Police Department Happenings
We are about to complete our 2nd Citizen's Academy and the reviews have been fantastic. Many thanks Assistant Chief Larry Jolley for again putting the program together and all on the department that spent many evenings with the class. If you are interested in attending the next one, look for an announcement early next year, it will likely begin in May 2010.
Arrive Alive- our teen defensive driving program is off and running with 3 classes completed and some 37 young drivers having completed the course. The class begins with a 1 hour classroom presentation during which time all tell us that they do not want to be here, there parents or the courts made them and there are a hundred other places they would rather be. Four hours later after driving some pretty challenging courses we hear words like "cool", "awesome" "great" and the adjectives go on. This is good stuff and it is the best $85 you or your young driver may ever spend. We have many classes left and you can reserve your spot by calling Nadine Johnson here at the department at telephone (219) 764-5713. Many thanks to our officers who come out and teach the course and we remain very grateful to the Portage School System for making the high school available to us, without the high school we are without a lot to drive the course. Many thanks to all.
Physical Fitness Test- thanks to Diane Highlands and her family, we conducted a fitness challenge that ran from this past January through July 17th. With the exception of the weight contest, we broke the competition down by age- the YOUNG GUYS was taken by Officer Richard Schmitt, the NOT SO YOUNG GUYS was topped by Office Greg Coleman and the ONCE WERE YOUNG GUYS was won by Assitant Chief Larry Jolley. Nadine Johnson topped us all in the percentage weight loss, although I am proud to report that I took a 3rd place finish in that area.
The Highlands family's cash donation allowed us to hand out a few dollars to our top finsihers, more importantly it served as a wake up reminder that we need to take care of ourselves and doing so takes hard work. Work outs and weigh ins are already underway for next years event. The annual David F. Highlands fitness program is off to a great start and we hope that we will see a huge increase in participants next year.
Keep An Eye Open
We have received information of an increasing number of sheds and residences are being broken into in Porter County. The suspects vehicle is reported to be a sliver colored Ford Focus, 4 door, displaying Indiana license plate 892AUI. The car has a dent in the trunk.
The vehicle is registered to a rent a car company and had been rented by a white male. Reportedly the white male had been accompanied by two black males but, the car is now in the possession of only the two black males who continue to break into residences and sheds in our area. If you see the vehicle please call us immediately!
Drive Safely
Vehicle crash reports for the period of July 1, 2008 - June 30,2009 reflect that the Portage Police Department responded to 732 crashes of which 227 crashes involved an injury to 309 people, one involved a fatality. Wednesday was the most popular day for crashes and Sundays seemed to be the safest time on the road at 56 collisions reported. Most collisions took place from 4 pm to 9 pm with a total of 180 collisions reported during that time. The safest time to be on the road was from 10 pm to midnight( 36 collisions). Afternoon hours far exceeded morning hour crashes as well.
Scary Stuff
According to a recent article in the Times Newspaper, kids just do not get it when it comes to drugs and alcohol! They seemingly do not understand the bad things that can happen to them This fall the Portage Police Department will be sponsoring a presentation entitled "Drugs and the Consequences Thereof". I have presented this 1 hour block of instruction at schools and businesses from here to Illinois, California and Pennsylvania. It provides a bit of an over view as to what some drugs look like, what happens to those who abuse these drugs and what paraphernalia looks like. I am guessing that we will present this sometime after the school year begins and hopefully we will find space at the Portage High School- they have been very kind and generous in the past.
Until then, take a peek at the article -
http://http://www.nwitimes.com/news/loc ... f3038.html Questions From Our Subscribers
--Questions have arrived as to the ability of crooks to clone your remote key codes. That is, as you lock your door remotely in the grocery store lot, is it possible for others to clone that code and then make entry after you are safely inside the store?
I checked my favorite site for such things,
http://www.snopes.com and they tell me that there is some truth to the concern, but not enough to get us worried. Automobile remote keyless entry (RKE) systems made their way to the market in the 1980's and at the time were vulnerable to such cloning. With all that has changed in over the years, technological advancements have pretty much negated the issue. Newer systems use rolling codes to open an lock your doors and that pretty much has taken care of the problem. They do indicate however, that a very determined thief armed with the right stuff could snatch your code. It would take hours if not days to get it done, not simply a quick drive by your car though. In summary, I would not worry about it.
--One subscriber told me about a recent pick pocket attempt at a local mall. As he was walking with his wife at the shopping mall he was approached by a Latin male who was wearing what looked like a military uniform with no identification on it, his pants were bloused at the boot and he had a military style haircut. He followed for a bit, came very close to the couple and then after the couple stared at him, he disappeared. The writer then later found a tear in his pants from the top of his back pocket to the bottom portion. The cut was a perfect straight line and it is believed that a razor or similar device had been used to cut the back pants pocket open so that the wallet would fall out.
Well, I have not heard of that before so I will pass it along and we will see if anyone else has experienced anything similar?
Old School
For those of you who do not know the term, "Old School" means basically, from the past. I recall interviewing a gang banger some years ago and he kept talking about that his drug dealer who drove an
"old school" car. Finally I told him that I was lost, was he driving a school bus or an older car that belonged to the school system or what??? The kid started laughing at me and told me that "Old School" meant just that ---old !!!! The drug dealer was driving an older model car---an "old school" model. Yea, I felt a bit embarrassed, but to tell you the truth it is hard to keep up on some of the slang and street terms your kids use these days.
I subscribe to a gang data base that sends me a daily ration of emails keeping me up on what is happening across the country. Recently they passed along an abbreviated dictionary of some terms that the younger generation is using at least some terms used by our little gang bangers. It is not all encompassing, still, it gives you a flavor for what is out there. I caution you, there are some vulgarities and not nice words to be found should you visit it. If you are not sure what a "cap" is or a "spliff" is, you may want to take a look.
http://http://groups.google.com/group/a ... 5bc38cbd3e That is it for now, I hope you are enjoying the summer. Like it or not, it is moving quickly and soon the schools will be open again.
Mark J. Becker
Chief of Police
Portage Police Deparment
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