Each month, the Advocate visits with Sgt. Jim Little, Sr. Cpl. Pam Maines and Sr. Cpl. Rick Janich of the East Dallas Storefront police station, 1327 N. Peak Street (670-5523). The Storefront is best-known for its bicycle patrol officers, who pedal the streets of East Dallas weekdays. The City of Dallas funds the Storefront, but numerous volunteers and organizations provide both hours and funds to develop special programs aimed at building better relations among police officers and neighborhoods.
Advocate: What has been happening during the past month?
Rick: We’ve had a lot of calls on the insurance reduction article you ran last month in the Advocate, but hardly anyone qualifies on the first try. The guidelines are pretty strict. (Editor’s note: The police department offers a State-mandated checklist of home security precautions and equipment that, if present in your home, qualifies you for a 5-15 percent reduction in your annual homeowners’ insurance bill. The largest reduction is reserved for homes equipped with monitored electronic burglar alarms. A copy of the checklist is reprinted along with this article; check with your insurance agent or the police department for additional details.)
Advocate: What have been the biggest problems in qualifying for the reduction?
Rick: Windows. Particularly wooden windows. Each window – every one – has to have a lock or pin to prevent the window from being opened from the outside.
Pam: Or at least opened far enough for someone to fit through the opening.
Jim: You know, if any neighborhood groups or associations would like us to come to one of their meetings and explain this reduction and how to make their homes more secure, we’ll attend. We’ve got some displays to bring along that really make it clear what needs to be done to help secure a home.
It’s important to remember that every window has to have an auxiliary lock. Every one.
Rick: And every door has to have a deadbolt lock – with at least a one-inch lock.
Pam: Even into your garage. These guidelines aren’t just for insurance purposes, though; they’re good to ensure that your home is safe.
Advocate: Each of you lives in a house, right? Would your homes meet the State requirements for an insurance reduction?
Pam: I just bought a new house, and we had to do a lot of stuff to help it meet the requirements, including adding a double-deadbolt to one of the doors.
Rick: We had to do some work on our house, too.
Jim: You should mention that for those people who really don’t have the money to secure their homes, the police department can help. We have locks and peepholes available, and police officers will come to these individuals’ homes and install them – at no cost to the homeowner. All they have to do is call us.
Remember, though: This program is only for those who can’t afford to do it themselves.
The elderly and those who can’t afford fans also can give us a call. If they qualify, we’ll stop by their home and drop off a fan.
Advocate: I know we talked about how you provided fans to those without air conditioners last year. How did you distinguish between those people who really need fans and those who would like to run a scam on the police department?
Rick: Usually, street people will come into the office to get a fan so they can pawn it off for money, so we really watch closely to make sure that the right people get these fans. We went to one place not too long ago where a woman had two fans in the house already, and she wanted another fan for her extra room. Now, that doesn’t qualify, in my opinion, so we didn’t give her one.
Advocate: Any other news in East Dallas?
Jim: Coming into the summer, we’ve got some manpower changes in our neighborhoods. One is a special unit that deals with the drug problem – they go into an area where the problem is particularly bad to survey the problem, identify the guilty parties and then someone else (other police units) will swoop in and get them (the drug dealers).
If any of the neighborhoods are having a particular problem – drugs in a particular house, prostitution activity that persists – I would encourage them to call me.
Rick: You can even call him at home. (Laughter.)
Jim: Well, I’ll be at home, but I’d encourage them to call me at the office (670-5523), and we’ll try to dispatch a unit to help out. Just as an example of how this works, a neighborhood resident recently had a serious drug problem in his area. He contacted us, and we sent the special unit out, and that very night we had seven felony arrests – the first night.
The way this happens, the bad guys can’t even figure out how they got caught or anything – the person who called us will never be identified. And that makes the criminals stop and think, and usually things die down.
