Cedar Park crime tracking tool helping keep out bad guys

CEDAR PARK, Texas (KXAN) - Just recently, criminals popped in for a visit in Cedar Park’s Town Center subdivision just off FM Road1431. Neighbors noticed a fire and called police.

"It turned out that they had broken into a car over on another street in the neighborhood, stolen a purse and were destroying some of this information,” said Cedar Park resident Tom Mortenson.“The call resulted in an arrest."

Mortenson said the thieves were trying to burn ID cards they found in the purse. Swift neighborhood vigilance and snappy police response is what Mortenson wants to continue seeing.

"Vigilance doesn't mean vigilantism in any way," he said. "It means know what's going on, watch what's going on and call the police as soon as you see something out of the ordinary."

Mortenson’s neighborhood has a well organized neighborhood watch program. His computer screen shows an aerial view of his subdivision.

There is an array of colors representing blocks. Each block has a block captain. Mortenson’s block is the pink one. About two dozen other captains maintain active neighborhood watch programs.

Neighbors know each other, and they communicate regularly. They e-mail neighborhood news and they host more than just the "neighborhood night out parties". Some even gather for porch meetings. It’s a chance for neighbors to just gather and chat and get to know each other.

"Neighborhood watch programs are about awareness, their about vigilance, and their about communications,” Mortenson said.

Debuting about a week ago, residents now have a new crime-fighting tool called SpotCrime.com. It’s a free website that allows users to see what crimes have occurred in their neighborhood.

Here's how it works. Cedar Park residents can type in an address. A screen pops us showing a bunch of symbols. Each symbol signifies a crime. A little blue man in motion shows a theft. A beige fist shows an assault and a mean-looking man dressed in black is a robbery. Click on the symbol and it gives you more detailed information about the crime; like when and where the crime happened

"Although Cedar Park has one of the lowest crime rates in the state that doesn't mean we don't have crime here and we have to address it and we're always looking to see what we can do to reduce it," says Cedar Park police chief Henry Fluck.

For two years running, Cedar Park has held an important ranking, “The Second Safest City in the State” of cities with a population of 50,000 to 100,000; that’s according to crime statistics from the Department of Public Safety's Texas Crime by Jurisdiction report.

Flower Mound, north of Dallas, ranks first and Georgetown came in third. The city with the highest rate with the same population group is Texarkana.

In the report, from 2008-2009 Cedar Park reported four murders, 13 rapes, 12 robberies, 41 aggravated assaults, 160 burglaries, 795 larceny and 27 auto thefts.

Cedar Park police has appointed one person in its department to gather the reported crimes each day and send them to SpotCrime. Computer technicians there post them to their site. It can keep information three months at a time. Reported crimes are archived after that. The service is free to the police department and free to residents who sign up.

Tom Mortenson has signed up to get daily crime alerts. He received one Wednesday afternoon about 1p.m. There weren’t any reported crimes where he lives but about a handful were reported a few miles away. He’s relieved, for today and so are police. This new tool may help Cedar Park maintain its safe city ranking and maybe even move up a notch.

"A lot of the way we address crime is by getting citizens calling in and telling us about suspicious behavior because they are our eyes and ears in the community,” Fluck said.