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Good evening. This is Community Antenna television. See a TV Channel, six Santa Rosa. The programming of total television of Santa Rosa's local programming department. Opinions expressed on See a TV Channel six are not necessarily those of total television of Santa Rosa or Post Newsweek. Cable announced

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a tune for cinema counting the eighties with Rich McGlinchey coming up Next. Wait. Now the Sonoma County Public Information Office presents Cinema County in the eighties with your host, Rich McGlinchy. Hello, everyone. Welcome through Sonoma County

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in the eighties. We're gonna be talking about two very, very important subject tonight. Certainly important to you and I. We don't want to be a part of it. We can't help it, but we probably will. But talk about violent crimes to some degree. We'll talk with

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Detective Sergeant Jim Carlson, the Santa Rosa Police Department, about violent crime from the right of your screen, and they were going to talk about the victim witness program. We'll talk to the victim witness coordinator Lind approaching a strange who is on the left of your screen

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and Highland. It's nice to have you back about two years at least. Jim, like your first visit with us, but it sure pleasure to have you here in just a moment ago. Violent crime is something that's a little too much with us, and it can befall

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anyone. She well, no. And let's learn a little bit more about violent crime and what law enforcement does about it. Talk to Jim Crossing about it. Jim, Um, if a citizen becomes the victim of a crime, uh, what did they do? Who should they call? Well,

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if it's a serious crime and there they needed immediate response. They should go to any phone and dialed 911 within it. With the new nine on one system, it will get you to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Once they report to the A G that will

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handle the case, they should expect on immediate response if it's a serious crime. Most violent crimes are of a serious nature that will call for an immediate response. Eso that's what they should expect initially is to obviously get to the phone and reported on await the

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arrival of the 911 And for heaven's sakes, don't think of it is 9 11 because people sometimes say that, then they have you know what happened when we were jumping? Set that up on the county. Some people actually thought that you dive nine and it was

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an 11 on your phone now, and they really misunderstood that. And I'm sure that that man fouled up a few emergency. So the point is, 911 Remember that? I just thought I'd throw that in because it has had been a problem. Ruptured. The citizens expect from

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the police gym once a crime is following court. Okay, A violent crime, when it occurs, requires a lot of immediate response, and it it begins the process of a number of people getting involved in the investigation of it. The officer's primary concern, obviously, is to take

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care of the needs of the victim. If the victim is injured, which normally is the case in a violent crime, they will take care of those needs. Make sure medical attention is afforded to them on anything along those lines. The second responsibility, obviously they have, is

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to try and, uh, catch the perpetrator. And so that's what they're interested in primarily. And they will begin investigating the the case. From that standpoint, most serious violent crimes involved a detective getting assigned to the case. At some point along the investigation, uh, the citizen can

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expect to be interviewed in depth about what has occurred as soon as possible after it occurred so that their memory is fresh and they may be involved in a number of things, such as viewing groups of photographs, artist composites on those types of investigative steps in

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order to to make the case and and try and identify the perpetrator. Uh, lectured citizens do if they have questions or, let's say, a victim, what should they do if they have questions regarding your case after this is okay, that's a good question. Each victim will

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have reported their crime to an officer. In other words, a police officer will have responded and took initial and taken initial charge of the case. Uh, so that would be the contact person. Whoever that individual is, whoever takes the primary report, Uh, unless, uh, there's a

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detective assigned to the case, which may not always be true. They wouldn't know who else to call. So if they used the primary responding officer as a contact person for questions and so forth, he can refer them to the appropriate person, usually in a violent crime

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of a serious nature of detective will take over the case right away. And, of course, they will meet the victim, interview the victim and that will be the person to contact. So whoever's in charge of their case on their investigation in the department that is being

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that's investigating. It would be the one, uh, and the chance of a violent crime or any kind of a crime. A lot of force, I guess you would say you what should just citizen do if they receive a threat from the offender that happened very frequently

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in violent and violent type crimes? Basically, because the offenders are looking at, you know, very serious sentence. Uh, and it's a It's a really important part of our process. Once we begin the court process, the defendants in the case typically are able Teoh, make phone calls

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to the victims or send them letters of a threatening nature and that sort of thing. It is a violation of law to do that, to threaten or intimidate or try to dissuade in any way a witness from testifying in court, and we very actively pursue prosecutions

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for the for the people who were involved in that. We need to know about it right away. They should report it to whoever is handling the case or any law enforcement agency. Basically, for example, if they live in another jurisdiction and it happens outside of the

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Cinema County area, it should be reported immediately to the police and then to the agency. That may be investigating the case, because that, in and of itself is a crime that we will prosecute for that a threat after after the witnesses really is waiting a witness

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from testifying. Gord, that's really a serious you folks view that, and I think everybody or it was a very serious crime. Really, absolutely. It's intimidation forth, trying to tempt that it is what it will dio. If a person succumbs to the threat, they will not want

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to testify in court. They will cause the original case to be dismissed because, for fear of of retaliation from their responsible and, uh uh, you know, that's obviously what you know we're trying to avoid at all costs. We want to hold this person accountable for what

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he's done, and if he can be heels like she feels like they can intimidate the witness to drop the charges or not testify than their successful at avoiding prosecution. So it's a very serious matter than a lot of of the officers that police departments hard work

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time money is going down the drain and you haven't done a thing to the comfort. And I think, more importantly than that they they're setting themselves become victims again because trader will, you know, likely do the same thing again unless we can deal with him. I'm

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gonna topple over here to talk to you for a minute and I'll come back. We'll talk more about this, Gonna get these two programs. You are the coordinator for the victim witness program, right? That's correct that that leaves me right to this question of jotted down

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Linda. What is the victim Witness program? The victim Witness program is a program in our county based out of the probation department, and it's one of 44 programmes statewide in the state of California. It's also nationwide, and it varies as to whether it would be in

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the probation department, the district attorney's office or other non profit agencies throughout California and throughout the United States. It's a really new part of the criminal justice system and what it is's. It's the only part that is a formal agency within the criminal justice system that

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works with crime victims. So basically what our program is all about, it's assisting victims of crime with a variety of services. This is a extremely important program and what it hasn't been in existence too terribly long. But certainly there has been enough concern for the defendant's

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right in the courts. Over the last couple of decades. It seemed like and and many people would even order that there's been to much concern for that side of the fence and so little concern for the victim of a crime. So I personally before even going

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further into questioning, I want to commend you for being a part of that and for the state and county for establishing it because it is vitally needed. What services does your program provide for people? There's a real variety of services we provide, and what happens is

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we get our referrals from a lot of different resource is we get them from other agencies and primarily we get them from the police department Now. It's a law that all police officers and sheriffs deputies notify victims about the victim witness program and the way they

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do that as two ways. One is by telling victims about that, either at the crime scene or during the process of the investigation, and the other is they send us a copy of the crime report, the first page of it. And then we notify the victim's

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in writing, asking if they would like to contact our office to set up ah, case for them on behalf of the victims so that we can do lots of different things for them. One of things we do is we send them this brochure, which is thieve

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IQ Tim Witness Brochure forced to Noma County, and in this brochure, it list all the services that we provide. So, basically as a citizen in the state of California right now, as of uh, 1979 are Sonoma County program has been in existence and any person who

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becomes the victim of a crime is eligible for victim compensation up to $23,000 worth of reimbursement on as of January 1 of this year, that amount has been increased to 46,000 on that covers any medical or hospital bills, any for many injuries that may have suffered.

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It also covers any therapy costs as a result of it psychological emotional trauma they may have. It also covers loss of wages, losses, support as a result of the injuries. If the person's unable toe work more say somebody is murdered, then what would happen is that

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their loss of wages, their loss of child support, their loss of alimony, who then be reimbursed through the victim's program because the family has no other recourse. Ah, there's job retraining and rehabilitation services that are covered under those amounts of money. There's also funeral and burial

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expenses up to $2800 when our victims don't survive the effects of crime. What everyone should know is that the victims program is not a charity program. It's actually that money comes from in our State of California from Sacramento. Where does the money where the money comes

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from? Miss fines and penalty assessments when anyone goes through court when anyone is convicted of any type of crime from the most minor crime of all to the most heinous crimes. They're fine commensurate with their ability to pay and the crime itself. And so what happens

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is that that money goes into a huge victims fund. And in our county, we apply to Sacramento to the State Board of Control. So the Board of Control is responsible to make sure that families not only the victims but now, as of January 1 of this

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year, also, any immediate family member who is affected by the crime is eligible for this reimbursement. The family members who were not victims but who need assistance, are eligible for up to $10,000 of reimbursement for compensation. All right, we're going to pause right here, not our

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station. Bring the audience a public service announcement. Come back with trucks and more about victim witness program. We'll also talk more about violent crime. And how did you deal with that? Ladies and gentlemen, Lindy, Pooja, Linda Poggio Strange and Jim Carlton and I will return run

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into this important message. Hi, I'm no one famous, but I did make an important phone call. I called the help line of the snow MMA County National Council on Alcoholism. the information they gave me about the disease of alcoholism really helped me to get my family's

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life back on track. It made all the difference in the world for me. You could make the difference for you, too. Hello. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County Navy, talking about two very, very important and often tragic circumstances. Violent Crimes. Talking with Sergeant Detective

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Sergeant Jim Carlson of Santa Rosa Police Department about his work in this field. And we're also talking to Linda poaching the strange. And she is the victim witness coordinator for the County of Sonoma's victim witness program. Get to come back to you for a minute jam

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or a couple of minutes here. How long does it take for a case to go to court after you directed somebody? For, Ah, violent crime usually varies in the type of crime it is and how serious it is, how quickly the individual is able to post

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bail or b o. R. A lot of things depend on whether he's in custody during that time or not. Uh, you can expect that to go to court any any time from after 10 days, up to 10 weeks, depending on continuances and various court processes. For

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the first appearance in a violent, violent type. Crime is a serious felony would be to two basic court appearances. One is a preliminary hearing for the victim, and they will have to testify during that and then the trial itself. So way popular with this question that

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who decides the case goes to court? Okay, it's a good question. Basically, the district attorney is responsible for issuing the complaints. There are cases where we might make an arrest as a law enforcement agency, and the case will not go to court because, uh, the district

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attorney has decided not to file based on insufficient evidence based upon the fact that maybe the victim is not willing to testify or a lot of variables. But the district attorney's Office of the county is responsible for basically deciding which cases get into court in which,

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which do not right now relief. The victim in this case would have to testify in court. Yes, they will have to testify, and they should be prepared to do that. Uh, any time you're a victim of a violent crime or a victim of any crime or

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even a witness to a crime way need to prosecute the offender. And in order to do that, we have to have people testify to it to accord as to what they saw. What happened to them and the only obviously the only way we can do that

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is is by having the victims testify in court. That could be a very traumatic thing for some victims, particularly the young Children that involved in violent crimes. And and so we try to prepare them for that before beforehand. But yes, generally, if you're a victim of

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a crime in your case is going to go to court, you will be able, you will be required to testify. And you really should be not only willing but eager to really, because it is the only way you could ever help people like Kim Carlson in

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the Police Department. Um, lesson crime in given areas and that is true, actually stand up and be counted to point out if necessary, or identify the person who perpetrated the crime and let that person be punished because there is no other way in which we assistant

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can help curtail this sort of thing. way we were talking about a victim witness coordination on your part. The program. It's such, and you talked about where the money came from, responds and so forth and amount of 23,001 up to 46,000 now who is eligible for

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victim compensation? Well, as far as the monetary part of the victim witness program, which is the victim compensation. Anyone who is the victim of a crime, which has been first of all, reported to law enforcement because we need to send to Sacramento a copy of the

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crime report so that they can verify that this person was indeed a witness. Also, the victim must have a loss that is not reimbursed from other sources. In other words, if they have insurance that pays 80% the victims program would pay the remaining 20%. There's a

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lot of things say under uh, when seniors who are covered by either medical or Medicare Medicaid are injured, expenses that are not covered under that so frequently There are people who have insurance who still are eligible because the victim's program will pay for whatever their insurance

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doesn't. Many people don't have insurance or their expenses go over what their insurance would pay. There was one of the thing I wanted to mention, which is that our program? This victim compensation part is only one part of our program. The other part of our program

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is the court support that we provide to victims when they're going through this court process. And that's advocacy court advocacy. And our victim witness unit in this county is very small size. And yet our responsibilities are very great. If you can imagine how many offenders there

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are out there, how many criminals air there who are in jails in prison? If you would just think about that for a moment and realize that for every offender, I wonder how many victims there are. And as a result, we have a wide variety of law

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enforcement agencies throughout Sonoma County and all the remaining counties. We have, ah, great number of prosecutors and court officers and probation officers. And for all those people, we have exactly three staff, three probation officers for a victim witness unit to service this entire county. One of

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those people is responsible to provide court support and the other to do it on a case by case basis. So what you need to be aware is that when a child has to testify in court, or when somebody who has really traumatized has to testify in

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court, we are there to tell them what to expect. Most of them have never been in a courtroom. They're very fearful of sitting and run of the offender. They're very fearful of looking at a judge or having a judge sitting up higher than they are next

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to them. Children can't even see out of their own shares when they're testifying in court. So the victim witness unit comes in and puts a booster seat on the chair, prepares them for court, tells them what to expect, tells them that they will be badgered and

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other negative experiences that are part and parcel of the court process the way it operates now. So that's another extremely important function of the victim witness unit. The other part of it, too, is property return whenever anyone is the victim of a crime. If there's any

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property that's confiscated, say burglary victim, their home was burglarized and this burglar goes around the neighborhood, and burglarize is a variety of homes and if their fortune enough to catch this person and send them to state prison as a result of their offenses during the period

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of time that they're in prison, which can be, you know, a really great number of years. What happens is if they appeal it, which many of them dio that property will stay in a property locker until the appeal is heard. So we assist victims as best

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we can with laws the way they are to help them get return of their property. That well, I know you do a great deal. There's two things I want to be sure to get across there. One is has to do with with you. Jim. Excuse me

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a minute. How long does it take? No big party. Yeah, Well, how long does it take to get stolen property back? Okay, a lot of Linda mentioned kind of points to that problem. If the offender has been prosecuted in, there's an appeal process waiting. We're bound

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by law to retain that property until after the appeal. It does take a long time. Sometimes we're trying to explore different ways to do that. For example, if an individual is a victim of a robbery, and a large amount of money has taken, uh, we, uh,

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rather than, you know, have that money tied up for a long period of time. Is business may depend on it. We try Teoh duplicate the money through a Xerox method of photographing so that we can show the court exactly what it was we were able to

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confiscate from the individual and then return it to him and provide receipts and so forth. That's not the best evidence rule. The courts are bound by, but occasionally we'd like to try. And, uh, Seymour programs centered around that idea throughout the state so that people will

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not be without their personal property for long periods of time. Uh, so it can be a very long time. It's not necessarily a long time, but, uh, it can be so All right, the question I want to ask you ties in without a little bit. How

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long does it take for a victim to be reimbursed for expenses? There is no money on a county level for victims of crime. We apply on behalf of the victims to the state, which is Sacramento. And usually we have two kinds of claims. One is an

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emergency claim that can take as long as four months, sometimes even longer. Most claims presently are going anywhere from taking from four months to nine months. We have some very complicated claims where there have been lawsuits and uh, insurance settlements and those contagious anywhere from a

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year or longer. So it's a very time consuming process right from the very beginning. And one of the really important responsibilities that we have two victims is to try and work with the community to get people to understand that all of us are vulnerable at any

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time. Anyone of us could become a victim through no action of our own. And to put a further burden on victims by not waiting for the money to come from the state or by adding finance charges to that or by being inconsiderate to someone who has

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been the victim of a crime is something that we deal with on a daily basis, because many victims are totally devastated by these crimes which occurred to their family to lose a spouse as a result of a murder or to have your child molested and need

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therapy, not only for your child, but in order to deal with it and then to be told we can't see you until you pay us or you need Teoh. You know, get on a waiting list is something that we fight on a daily basis were advocates

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for victims and we advocate advocate in a myriad of ways each day. And each new day brings a new problem and a new frustration. So basically what we need to do is get the word out, which is why I'm here today is to get the word

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out that this program exists. It exists no matter what county your from it exists throughout the States and now with the federal law, it exists throughout the states fairly uniformly. Whereas before, if you lived in one state that might not be covered under the victim's program,

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you would be ineligible. California's a real leader in victims rights. How did they get in touch with you? If they have been a victim? The best way to get in touch with us is to call our office number, which is 5 to 7 2002 and that's

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area code 707 We're located in Santa Rosa. We're located near the courthouse, and the best thing to do is to call our office at 5 to 7202 and ask for directions. Right? Go here for a minute. We're down to about committed, I think, Uh, what help

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could you offer citizens quickly so that they not be easy targets for criminal? Well, they're number. Things that weaken suggest to people. Most people fall victim of crime because they're they don't really understand how they make themselves more vulnerable. So we have a crime prevention program

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in a crime prevention unit designed, as does the Sheriff's Office, designed to give information to the public about how they can protect themselves a little better tips on ways they can secure their homes better, how they can keep themselves from falling victim by being in vulnerable

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places and so forth. So if you contact a crime prevention office or the sheriff's Office crime prevention office, you can get all the information regarding those right that you know, that works very well. They come out to your neighborhood and tell you how to avoid. We're

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running out of time or very rapidly only thank you for being here. And that number is 5 to 7. To go to correct. 27202 Area code seven or seven in case you need to get a hold of victim witness project from Cranston. Thanks a 1,000,000 for

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kids tend to come down. But I think you had a lot of interesting information about violent crime and how we can deal with it. And what does happen when it happens? Ladies and gentlemen, Linda, pledging a strange that can witness coordinator, detective charge of Jim Carlson

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said it was the police department of it. I guess we've been talking about violent crime. Invictus witness, then the victim witness program I'm, which prevents you having back with you next week with another member of the county government. Family were related agency with a priest department

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witness. So good luck to each and everyone of you. Sonoma County in the eighties is a production of the Sonoma County Public Information Office. This program is being produced as a public service by total Television of

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Santa Rosa for Channel 22. Be sure to join us next week. Same time, same channel for another edition of Sonoma County in the eighties.