Did You Know...

03-01-07 The Vernonia Police Department recently participated in the "3FLAGS Blitz" Safety Belt enforcement February 5-18th. The VPD was able to do some enhanced safety enforcement as well as send Officer Conner to a Pre-Blitz training workshop in Eugene on January 10-11th. The 3FLAGS program helps increase public awareness and compliance through high-visibility traffic enforcement. Along with the traffic safety and safety belt use the 3FLAGS program is focusing on Child Restraints and Child Passenger Safety. It is a documented fact that the right child restraint can reduce the change of crash injury by 71% for infants, 54% for toddlers, and 59% for children in boosters. In Oregon, ODOT reported that 1,354 children under eight were injured and six were killed in motor vehicle crashes last year. Two out of five of these children were not using child restraints or they were improperly fitted. Look for more enhanced patrols throughout the year. As you can see by the blotter report Vernonia is seeing an increase in the number of thefts, particularly metal thefts. This does not include the numerous thefts that have occurred just outside of Vernonia and reported to other agencies. The theft increase in Vernonia mirrors what is occurring around the rest of Columbia County and the entire Northwestern part of the country. Predominately the thefts are being done to support the illegal drug trade and drug use. Any item that has even the smallest amount of marketable metal is being stolen. In Southern Oregon, a remote house had the aluminum siding stolen while the owner was away. Here in the Vernonia area we are seeing wire, radiators, tools, and anything that can be scrapped for cash or traded for drugs. Some of the recent thefts have included equipment being used by contractors building the water treatment project. Other items stolen have been from local businesses who can have a narrow bottom line to begin with and then have difficulty balancing the thefts. Currently the VPD is working closely with Oregon State Police out of Banks on several open theft cases. The VPD is taking measures to respond to the thefts using available resources. We would ask for community help as well. Watch out for you and your neighbors by reporting suspicious activity, suspicious vehicles, and suspicious people. Try to make a note of time, date, descriptions, and license plates. It may not seem too suspicious at the time but the information could be invaluable later if a theft is discovered. If you have been a victim of a theft we encourage you to report it to the proper agency. Even if the items stolen were just scrap or of little value, we need to know. Your report may allow us to fill in missing pieces of this extremely large puzzle.