Rocklin Woman Uses Facebook To Fight Crime
ROCKLIN (CBS13) -- A soccer mom has turned amateur crime fighter, and now she's teamed up with her whole neighborhood.
You might call it it "add a friend, find a foe." That's one mom's vision of crime fighting in this neighborhood, and it's gotten quite the following. It's a Facebook phenomenon in Rocklin.
"He's gonna give us a nice mug shot here," said Hennie McIntire, creator of the Cresleigh Springs Crime Stoppers Facebook page.
Surveillance video posted to a new neighborhood crime fighting Facebook page shows a prowler using a flashlight to search through cars. The hooded youngster goes from one driveway to the next.
"The idea first surfaced when there was a break in too close to home," said McIntire.
"I had no expectations of it being this big. And this vast, this many members," said McIntire.
Homeowners here have become more wary of break-ins and vandalism.
"We just noticed there was a little more crime in the neighborhood," said resident Tina Watts.
Another picture posted shows an SUV stripped of its rims and wheels, right in front of the owner's home.
McIntire started the Facebook page after she began hearing of nearby crimes long after they'd happened.
"I'm thinking, 'I've been here the whole time, I haven't heard it, I haven't seen it, and now it's happening within two fence lines of my home? That's not okay'," said McIntire.
Rocklin Police say there have been 20 calls for break-ins and 20 cases of vandalism in the neighborhood in the past six months -- numbers that don't show an uptick in crime.
Still, the Facebook page has some already feeling safer.
"I think its taken neighborhood watch to the next level, and so this is probably not the right neighborhood to come into," said McIntire.
McIntire says the key here is to keep this Facebook page focused to fighting crime; no comments about gardening, about swim lessons. Moving forward, the key here is to keep it focused on finding crooks.
To access the page, McIntire says she requires two neighbors to verify the address of any new Facebook requests.
