By Jessica Barreto
March 7, 2018
If your phone or computer is stolen and you can’t provide a serial number on record, police may not be able to find them.
That’s why Canon City police are helping community members register valuables for free.
They’re partnering with an online company to store data about your property.
It’s a new way to keep track of your valuables — a safeguard in the event that something happens to them.
“It allows us to kind of track it down and track down those properties to help solve a crime,” said Detective Athena Garcia with Canon Police Department.
Canon City’s Police Department now subscribes to the service LeadsOnline which gives detectives critical information on missing and stolen items right at their fingertips.
Even though police have pay to use it, residents can register for free.
On the site reportit.leadsonline.com, you can catalog your valuables in case they turn up somewhere else, like a pawn shop.
“It kind of pinpoints where these items are pawned, who pawned them so we have a suspect in mind,” said Detective Garcia.
Every pawn shop in the state of Colorado is required to report its transactions and LeadsOnline simply uses that data to cross-check serial numbers with missing items.
If there’s a hit anywhere the country, police get an alert.
“By putting in the serial numbers, by having all that data available, specific identifiers, what models, serial numbers, everything helps us find those items,” added Detective Garcia.
Despite property crimes like burglaries dropping eight percent from 2016 to 2017, they still make up more than 75 percent of all crimes in Canon City compared to violent crimes.
But police say if you register your items, you can help solve your own case if they get stolen.
“The more people in the community that catalog their items, and write down the serial numbers, the easier it’s gonna be for us to be able to follow up on those cases,” said Sgt. Timothy Bell with Canon Police Department.
Source: http://www.koaa.com/story/37673830/canon-city-police-encouraging-residents-to-register-valuables-in-database