Q: A few weeks ago, we left our garage door open, and a neighbor saw some guys taking things out of the garage to a car in the alley. The neighbor called the police with the license number and knocked on our front door to alert us. The thieves evidently saw him, left all our stuff in our garage and drove away. I didn’t see the police arrive, and they never contacted us further. Should we have contacted the police later since we were the victims, and we still had the license number from our neighbor? We figured since nothing was actually taken, there was no crime.

I would like to commend your neighbor for being so vigilant. Please do contact us with the information you have available. Even though it is now after the fact, the description and license plate number are important to our detectives.

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License plate numbers of suspects or suspicious persons are very valuable to us. We have several databases that can be used to track vehicles. In this case you were a victim of a crime even though you didn’t actually lose any property. The information you possess may be helpful in solving other crimes in our neighborhood.

Please remember to secure your garage door. Our campaign with the Boy Scouts of America has been designed to inform residents of the perils of leaving garage doors open. Statistics prove that 10 percent of all residential burglaries occur in the garage where the doors were left open.

Q: I found a spent .38 shell casing on the sidewalk in front of our house. Should I have called the police about this?

We are happy to retrieve shell casings and properly dispose of them. In the past, comparing ballistic evidence (shell casings) has been a tedious and time-consuming process. The Dallas Police Department has become involved with the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (N.I.B.I.N.), which allows us to compare the unique markings of shell casings. The process involves the combination of firearms examiners’ expertise and the research power of automation — every firearm has individual characteristics that are unique to it as fingerprints are to human beings.

It isn’t exactly like any of the “CSI” television shows, but it does allow us to be much more productive. Since November of 2004, the Dallas Police Department has linked more than a dozen different incidents with the respective weapon that was involved. This network is especially useful for crimes such as drive-by shootings.

Q: How does a school go about obtaining a crossing guard?

The Dallas Police Department’s Traffic Enforcement Unit supervises this program. There are certain qualifiers that are taken into consideration for a given location. We would like to provide as many crossing guards as requested; unfortunately, there are currently more locations that qualify than there are crossing guards available. Your location may already have been considered — please contact our Traffic Division at 214-670-5812 for more details.