{"id":12786,"date":"2012-12-07T10:45:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T15:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12786"},"modified":"2012-12-07T10:45:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T15:45:14","slug":"state-police-warn-crime-heroin-use-is-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12786","title":{"rendered":"State Police warn crime, heroin use is on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tell local residents to lock homes and cars to prevent thefts<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 Chester County might be a seemingly quiet rural area, but State Police are warning local residents that crime is an increasingly evident issue, specifically warning residents to make sure they lock their cars and homes, as drug-driven crime is on the rise locally.<\/p>\n

State Police Cpl. Mark Perloff spoke at Monday night\u2019s township Board of Supervisors meeting as part of a semi-regular process of public outreach from the troopers at the Avondale Barracks.<\/p>\n

The good news, Perloff said, is that even being understaffed, Avondale troopers have been able to put more cars on the road than even just a couple of decades ago. Although State Police remain under staffed, reinforcements are coming from new State Police Academy classes, which should help bring the troop closer to full-strength.<\/p>\n

Typically, he said, in the 300-square-mile area covered from the barracks, State Police are able to put nine cars out per shift and sometimes more. Typically, one of those cars, he said, is in East Marlborough. He said back in 1995, in his early days as a trooper, the barracks was only able to put four cars out on patrol in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the ability to have three troopers respond immediately, and five troopers within a matter of minutes,\u201d Perloff said.<\/p>\n

In combination with the township\u2019s part-time police department, Chief Gerald Davis and Lt. Robert Clarke, the township is fully covered at all times \u2014 and he said State Police do respond to calls even when municipal police are on duty.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the good news, he said. The bad news, though, is that all of that police protection is becoming increasingly needed in southern Chester County, Perloff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s crime everywhere, there\u2019s drug abuse everywhere,\u201d he said, noting that even rural quiet areas such as the southern portions of the county are not untouched by crime.<\/p>\n

Most of the crime, he said are from robberies to homes and cars, driven in part by drug use.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, heroin use is on the rise,\u201d he said. \u201cHeroin addiction is rampant in Chester County.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said most of the users are white, middle class \u201ckids.\u201d And it\u2019s those kids who are committing crimes, sometimes in the communities in which they live to feed their habits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great place to target,\u201d Perloff said, noting the numerous opportunities for theft.<\/p>\n

He did say a big help is to keep homes and cars locked \u2014 still something many local residents do not do \u2014 as would-be thieves will often move onto an easier target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tell local residents to lock homes and cars to prevent thefts By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 Chester County might be a seemingly quiet rural area, but State Police are warning local residents that crime is an increasingly evident issue, specifically warning residents to make sure they lock their cars and homes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[2332,685,2333,1164,563],"class_list":["post-12786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-burglary","tag-crime","tag-heroin","tag-southern-chester-county","tag-state-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}