Residents of Raghunanan Road in Longdenville have voiced their support for an increased police presence following a series of distressing home invasions.
Shas-tri Boodan Free-lance Cor-re-spon-dent Head of the Na-tion-al Op-er-a-tions Cen-tre (NOC) John-ny Abra-ham says res-i-dents of Raghu-nanan Road, Long-denville, have wel-comed the in-creased po-lice pres-ence in their com-mu-ni-ty fol-low-ing re-cent in-ci-dents in-volv-ing home in-va-sions.. Speak-ing af-ter a com-mu-ni-ty meet-ing at the Raghu-nanan Road Recre-ation Ground on Mon-day evening, Abra-ham said res-i-dents ex-pressed sup-port for on-go-ing po-lice ini-tia-tives and praised of-fi-cers for their re-sponse in ap-pre-hend-ing sus-pects linked to re-cent home in-va-sions.. “We had about 150
per-sons in at-ten-dance, and the peo-ple were re-al-ly glad for the re-sponse the po-lice did the oth-er day,” Abra-ham said.. He said res-i-dents al-so pledged to work close-ly with the po-lice once law en-force-ment main-tained reg-u-lar en-gage-ment with the com-mu-ni-ty.. Ac-cord-ing to Abra-ham, one of the main con-cerns raised by res-i-dents in-volved in-fra-struc-ture is-sues, in-clud-ing dam-aged lamp-posts and poor light-ing along parts of the road-way.. How-ev-er, he said res-i-dents were re-as-sured by the night-ly po-lice
pa-trols now tak-ing place in the area.. “We have reg-u-lar pa-trols in the area, and the peo-ple are very pleased be-cause they’re see-ing po-lice ve-hi-cles pass-ing with blue lights,” he said.. Abra-ham said of-fi-cers at-tached to sev-er-al spe-cialised units, in-clud-ing the Home In-va-sion Team, An-ti-Kid-nap-ping Unit, CID, Emer-gency Re-sponse Pa-trol and Long-denville Po-lice Sta-tion, have been de-ployed in the dis-trict.. He urged res-i-dents to make them-selves “hard tar-gets” for crim-i-nals by im-prov-ing home se-cu-ri-ty and
re-main-ing alert to sus-pi-cious ac-tiv-i-ty.. Abra-ham ac-knowl-edged that some se-cu-ri-ty mea-sures could be cost-ly, in-clud-ing the in-stal-la-tion of cam-eras and alarm sys-tems, but en-cour-aged res-i-dents to adopt prac-ti-cal mea-sures such as us-ing air horns to alert neigh-bours dur-ing emer-gen-cies.. He al-so ad-vised res-i-dents to pay close at-ten-tion to un-fa-mil-iar per-sons in the com-mu-ni-ty and re-port sus-pi-cious ac-tiv-i-ty im-me-di-ate-ly.. As part of the ini-tia-tive, res-i-dents and po-lice of-fi-cers formed three com-mu-ni-ty group chats to im-prove com-mu-ni-ca-tion
and al-low for rapid re-port-ing of in-ci-dents.. On the is-sue of pan-ic rooms, Abra-ham said while such mea-sures could be use-ful, vic-tims of home in-va-sions of-ten have very lit-tle time to re-act once crim-i-nals gain en-try.. He al-so re-vealed that ef-forts are be-ing made to im-prove the 999 emer-gency re-sponse sys-tem af-ter com-plaints from one vic-tim who re-port-ed-ly ex-pe-ri-enced de-lays while at-tempt-ing to con-tact emer-gency ser-vices dur-ing a home in-va-sion.. Abra-ham said the NOC plans
to hold ad-di-tion-al com-mu-ni-ty meet-ings in ar-eas in-clud-ing Freeport and Bal-main Gar-dens.
Raghunanan Road, police presence, home invasions, Longdenville, crime prevention, community security, National Operations Centre