The Carson City Sheriff's Office held a Crime Prevention Coalition meeting on Tuesday to help businesses prevent crime at their establishments as the holiday season approaches.
Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong says this meeting is about building alliances with businesses and law enforcement to make a safer community and prevent crime.
He says businesses face unique challenges when it comes to crime that need a special eye.
"I think that law enforcement has a particular responsibility in the community to step up to that leadership and host these types of events where we can gather together and share information and clarify issues whenever possible," said Sheriff Furlong.
Walking away from this meeting, the sheriff hopes the community can build a stronger relationship with law enforcement, because it takes teamwork to address the challenges that arise in the community.
Those who showed up to the meeting learned a lot of technical ways they can prevent crime in their businesses.
Katherine Schimaji, assistant manager with Jackson's, said the biggest reason she thinks working with law enforcement to prevent business crime is important is to improve response times, solve a crime, catch the thief, and bring them to trial.
She says she sees a lot of crime at her store.
"Most of the crime I see is theft of alcohol," she said.
Schimaji adds, "I'm definitely going to be contacting corporate about more security because we have limited cameras, and that's what the officers are always asking me about, if I have cameras outside. We don't have cameras outside, and we have limited cameras inside."
She told us she doesn't feel safe or secure at her workplace, but she believes the officers in town are hard workers.
"The officers here are wonderful. They respond very, very quickly," says Schimaji.
Sheriff Furlong says that crime in neighborhoods and businesses are very different.
"Businesses obviously attract a customer base. Neighborhoods are more family-based, but all of them share a common ground in that we have to work together. We don't know what's always normal within the business, and we don't always know what's normal in the residential area, but by working together and collaborating together, we can better understand the needs and thwart any efforts to disrupt our neighborhoods or businesses."
He says meetings like these are opportunities to share with one another.
"While we step up to that leadership role of presenting information and clarifying issues and laws, it's vitally important that we listen to businesses, what their unique challenges are, and where we can improve our services to them."
