Capt. Denise Schmitt: A Good Lunar New Year

In the Taraval District we have many families and businesses that celebrated the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger. It was a time to gather in restaurants or homes to both close the old year and open the new.

At the Taraval Station, officers kicked off the season by doing merchant walks along many of our busy commercial corridors.

Working with David Chan and our partners from SF Safety Awareness for Everyone (SAFE), officers Jane Wong, Fred Kwan, Eric Santiago and Joe Mendiola distributed public safety tips to the businesses and pedestrians along Ocean Avenue on Feb. 11. Joining us was SF Supervisor John Avalos, who bicycled up from the Excelsior where he had just walked Mission Street.

Later that day and the next, officers Charlie Chan and Ron Gherke walked the Taraval, Judah and Noriega street corridors while officers Ron Meyer and Nick Pena started walking Irving Street. During the afternoon on the day the officers were walking Irving, SF Supervisor Carmen Chu and members of her office, as well as members of SAFE, met up with the officers and walked the packed Irving Street corridor from 19th to 26th avenues.

Business was brisk and it was especially nice for me to meet so many of the hard working merchants on each of these corridors. Pedestrians also received safety tips inside red envelopes that traditionally hold "lucky money," or Lai See.

Good Information on Taraval Web Site

Also on the exciting news front, please take a moment to visit our station's Web Site at www.Taraval.org.

Our own Taraval Station officer Henry Ha has been working hard to develop a dynamic Web page that provides crime and contact data for the district. I am very impressed with what he has done to provide a go-to spot for crime and quality-of-life intel for the district. You will find archived newsletters and crime maps on a map of the district showing sector boundaries.

We are working to add contact information for our many community groups and neighborhood watch organizations. This will give people thinking of moving to our district a real view of just how many folks are out there watching out for each other.

Auto Burglaries Drop

Our latest CompStat data shows that the efforts of Taraval officers are continuing to pay dividends in the reduction of auto burglaries in the district. Auto break-ins were down 50 percent, with 45 reported between Jan. 17 and Feb. 13.

Six cases have benefited from officers taking fingerprints, which could be entered into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. On Feb. 5, inspector Mullin was able to add an additional count of auto burglary on James Beard, who was booked last month by Taraval officers.

To wipe this crime out we will need the public to take care of what they leave behind in their vehicles. It is not unusual for laptops, GPS devices, iPods and other small items of high value to be left behind in plain view. A quick trip becomes very expensive, very quickly, when these items, or the charges that connect them, are left visible and not secured inside the vehicle.

Please take the time to gather up your property before locking your car.

Residential burglaries also took a downward turn this reporting period. As always, we are grateful for the many eyes and ears of our residents, who are calling in suspicious activities. Burglars will loiter or scope out a residential area looking for the most promising targets.

Be Alert to Avoid Street Robberies

One crime which was up during the same time period was street robberies. Officers made arrests in two robberies, which occurred where the victims had just exited Muni buses. The victims were robbed of their iPods, a camera and wallets. This is in keeping with what most street robbers are going after - electronic devices, which the victim is either using while walking down the street or has been focused on during a bus ride. It is a good idea to keep use of these items to a minimum while in public.

The suspects in both arrests were juveniles traveling in groups. Be aware of your surroundings and, before disembarking, look around to see who is around. During the week, the Taraval Neighborhood Team (TNT) and plainclothes units teamed up with patrol officers to conduct decoy operations on the bus lines. This is a strategy we will continue to deploy.

Capt. Denise Schmitt is the commanding officer at the Taraval Police Station.