Recent neighborhood crimes prompted Continental Park residents to learn crime prevention measures during an hour-long session on Feb. 6, a service of the Kendall community’s homeowners association.
Leading the effort was Officer Javier Alumart of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Kendall District’s Neighborhood Resource Unit, a 19-year police veteran. “Since August of last year, the number of crimes is typically average for the size of your community,” Alumart told attendees.
An area that includes Continental Park, one of Kendall’s oldest communities, is part one of four major district grids, bounded by SW 77th and SW 87th avenues between Kendall Drive and 104th Street, covered by three policing shifts in three separate areas on a 24-hour basis.
“While several crimes have occurred in the park neighborhoods, most calls we get come from the apartment complexes on SW 72nd Avenue,” Alumart noted.
That area is located northeast of the 800 single- family homes clustered around Continental Park at 10000 SW 100 St.
From Aug. 1, 2014 through Feb. 5, 2015, statistics showed 32 residential burglaries and 20 thefts (occurring outside residences) as leaders of a total 90 cases investigated that included only four auto thefts within the specific grid covering Continental Park.
To keep residents abreast of area crime reports, Holly White, president of the Continental Park HOA, circulates updates on both park and nearby area crimes.
“Many of those occurred south of our community in The Falls area,” she noted. Alumart and White urged residents to call the countywide non-emergency police telephone at 305-476-5423 or 305-4-POLICE.”
“Many who want to report to police call 3-1- 1 which is a general county help line, and get discouraged when there is no response by police,” White explained.
Miami-Dade Police also provide a free, nonemergency online report that allows a resident to submit an immediate report which can be used for harassing telephone calls, criminal mischief and vandalism, lost property, landlord/ tenant disputes, verbal threats and alike. All cases filed within the system will be reviewed, but may not be investigated.
