By Erin McSwain-Davis
June 9, 2018
The Carrollton Police Department is spreading awareness about a secure website via Facebook called ReportIt, which is a citizen property inventory system, and law enforcement is urging residents to take advantage of it.
The Facebook site reads that if a resident has been a victim of theft, such as a burglary or having their car broken into, the victim can provide the necessary information, such as the serial number, to help Carrollton police find their stolen property.
“We created and shared the post because Facebook is a great way to reach a large number of people,” said Det. Blake Hitchcock. “When people have their serial numbers to their belonging and pictures to their property, we can share that through our crime information center, not only in Georgia but all over the country, so if your belongings are found by a department in California who runs the serial number, the right owner can recover it.”
Hitchcock said that if police are not provided a serial number, then the information of the stolen items will remain in the system locally. Hitchcock said that recording a serial number also helps with showing ownership if the need ever arises. When taking photos of jewelry, police suggest that you take closeup pictures.
“We want to educate the public to try and do a better job with keeping up with their belongings,” said Hitchcock. “But we shared this website because it was cool to see a free service where you can log in, put all your information in, and be in the know that if something happens then you can print it out and share it with us.”
“It is a secure website, just like with one’s bank account,” said Hitchcock. “It helps us try to locate people’s property because one of the main goals of our investigations is to try to find the property to give back to the victim.”
Source: http://www.times-georgian.com/news/local/police-using-reportit-can-help-victims-of-theft/article_18e12c70-aa78-5372-bbdb-f1ee008206f2.html