Huber Ridge Area

Do Your Own Work

Pam, We did the detective work our selves. The police came out and took a report, asked myself and my neighbor all our personal information such as Ht,Wt, hair and eye color, employer name/address, and even our SS number. I still think they were filling out the wrong area of the form (The suspect area not the victim area), the scary thing is this all becomes public record where any joe shmow can come in and acquire it!

Anyway! They didn't do much more than take the report. They said they would check the pawn shops and 4 weeks later when WE found our items at the pawns our selves they had little excuses. They said they checked the names of the people they suspected at the pawns to see if they had sold anything that matched our descriptions however they did not check for our items alone. WOW!

Do your own work! The BTPD is ''Stretched thin'' on man power and apparently they are having trouble finding new people to hire. This means we need to do our own work and watch over the shoulder of the 18-20 year old ''police officers'' that show up when we call them.

To the BTPD officers who watch this site, we pay the taxes that pay your salaries! We pass the levies that keep you running! You are nothing more than public servants. When the price for service goes up and the quality of service goes down, customer loyalty disappears. Realize this before you hope to pass another levy! Please start doing your job, and follow through with what you promise, we depend on you!

Uncalled for

Dear anonymous,

I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I'm sure we are all sorry for your stolen property and having to do your own detective work. I will go out of my way though to support the actions of the police department when it comes down to crime in the area. We have had incidents in our home on several occassions and the Blendon Police have always responded quickly (not like Columbus where you have to wait anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to get someone there). They have always followed up with me and continue to. Sometimes you just have to do some of the leg work. The department is always busy and have more calls and activity than I'm sure either of us knows. Yes they may be Public Servants as you say but they deserve nothing less than total RESPECT. Hopefully the worst thing that happens to you is something gets stolen. Otherwise, maybe you will learn to respect what these men and women do. It's not like they get paid a fortune to protect the community. Be nice. It could be much worse.

By A mom

Our Police

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for your reply to my question. I am sorry things did not go as you expected. I know that the chief will look into your concerns and likely respond to you. I have the highest regard for him and the men I know on the department. (No, I do not know all of them.)

I do appreciate what ''mom'' wrote about our police, and I agree that our police respond quickly. Yes, the department is short-handed right now. But I am glad they are hiring carefully. Many may have read about integrity problems other police departments are experiencing. As for me, I do not want just any warm body to police the neighborhood.

Let us all do our part by watching, listening, and reporting. So many hesitate to report.

But anonymous, I am glad you wrote and I am glad you did get your stuff back. Thanks again.

I agree

Although I don?’t feel my original comments are inaccurate, they may be incomplete and I don?’t want to give the impression that the police are unreliable in emergent situations. Every time I have had to call 911 the police are first to arrive and quickly. This is a benefit we have over Columbus. I do support the police 100%! I have even volunteered over the years to pass out levy fliers for them. I, like many others in the neighborhood are discouraged at the follow through or lack of in non emergent situations. It seems the minor reports just get filed away and no action is taken. Even, this time when my items were recovered, they have the identification of the criminal via the drivers license they used to sell the stuff at the pawn shop. At very lease the police can follow charges of ?“position of stolen property?”. To my knowledge this has not happened and it has been several weeks. My stolen items are just the straw that broke the metaphoric camels back. My comments were not intended to upset anyone, only to be the squeaky wheel that needs oil.