a caravan of cars pulls into this oak cliff neighborhood all are from precinct seven of
the dallas county constable's office the officers are searching for gangs and burglars if you see
a juvenile walking down the alley with a portable tv set a vcr and a pocket full of change chances
are he's committed a burglary dallas county constable beryl jernigan says in the summer
a majority of burglaries are committed by juveniles we had one kid here was you know
taking us for you know for you know everybody you know every time you leave he's watching
everybody and breaking in and stuff like that each day the officers pick a neighborhood to
patrol in their 47 square mile precinct which stretches from dallas and lancaster over to
grand prairie and down into desoto and duncanville the element of surprise is key there is no
forewarning of when and where the patrols will be. In Oak Cliff's Glen Oaks
neighborhood, the patrols are credited with reducing crime by 70 percent. Much
of this is about perception. Constable Jernigan says having a heavy presence of
officers helps prevent crime. If you go out as one or two, that does not attract
the attention from the citizen nor the burglar as four, five, six or eight or ten
officers work in one area. That looks like too much heat in one neighborhood
and it caused the criminal element to move out.
On this day, the only problems found are kids not obeying a stop sign.
Who wants you guys to wind up being an accident, huh?
A vandalized vacant house.
It was a nice home at one time.
And a home where the owner needs to check loose burglar bars.
Because some kid could come up and just pull those bars off real easily and go into the house.
The goals are to ensure security and make it harder for someone to commit a crime.
Let's go out and let the burglars know that we're on the scene.
Barry Sims, Texas News 5.