Get a crime plan for business travel

By Steve Rose | Tuesday, August 29, 2006, 09:30 AM The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Here are two points that I would like to share: Several cars, parked in hotel parking lots, were broken into Sunday night, and a whole bunch of items were taken. Ranging from laptops to wallets and golf clubs, a number of items were taken in about seven or eight incidents. What perfect targets. Out of town people coming in on Sunday night for Monday meetings might leave everything in the car, especially if they’re back out of town on Monday night. Hotel security probably focuses on the inside more than outside but you need to know that when you travel you become a better target because you don’t know the area, and unfortunately for most of us, we don’t err on the side of caution or prevention. Why drag all that stuff out of the car only to re-stock it the next morning. Most of us use the “I’ll park in front of the room� or plan B, known as “I’ll park within a hundred feet of the door.� When you travel, at least move the big stuff in for the night. Here is the second point of the day: We had an armed robbery at a check-cashing store. The officer responded to the shop and noticed the video camera. The victim said it was fake. The fake camera is supposed to deter the bad guys. Obviously it didn’t. I found that very surprising given this was a check-cashing store. The loss was over $34,000 cash. I think with that amount on the line, I would get the real thing. We love video. We make a lot of arrests on video and still photos. If you own a business, spend the money and get something you can record on. Then, we can work on the number three problem, putting tape in the machine. Believe it or not, probably a quarter of our robberies and other crimes that are committed in areas equipped with video don’t benefit from it due to human error meaning the tape wasn’t put in or was erased or somehow disabled by the employee. If you own a business, have some in-service employee training and set a documented time frame for training on how to remove and restock video tape or otherwise hard-drive operation. It is always the little things that bite us. Make sure that you put some time in your security plan for your business.