Busting crime not limited to OSI, SF

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Tara A. Williamson
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  All too often, important information about a crime is left unshared because witnesses, or even victims themselves, are afraid of their personal information being shared with others.

This is why members of Kadena's Air Force Office of Special Investigation Detachment 624 have created the Kadena Crime Busters Facebook page.

Kadena Crime Busters is about getting Team Kadena more involved in the fight against crime; it wasn't created because of and isn't about a spike in any crimes, Laville said.

For instance, if details are put out on Kadena Crime Busters by OSI about a sexual assault by the seawall, someone else might say, "That situation happened to me a week before, I did see somebody over there," or "I was there and a friend distracted me, so maybe he wasn't able to commit the crime."

However, similarities such as the same location, the same type of activity, are clues other individuals can provide to help aid the OSI team, Zimmer said.

"If somebody saw something, chances are they've done it before," said Dallas Zimmer, AFOSI Det. 624 agent trainee. "If they've done it in the past, they're going to do it again. If you put the information out there, you might get more people to say, 'Hey, this happened to me.' They'll give their incident, and we'll get more information about [the perpetrator]."

But the community hasn't known what information the agents at OSI have available. That's why they've begun pushing out the information on incidents through the social media site, so the community can get involved.

"I never would've thought of using Facebook like that until [Laville] brought it up," Zimmer said. "I thought, 'This is a great idea. Let's run with it, see what we can do.' So I've been getting it together; I'm trying to get it out to the public as much as possible."

Kadena Crime Busters is designed to get information out that affects the whole community, such as unresolved crimes or unknown perpetrators.

"That's what we want to push out on the website," Laville said. "There is no common website here, for Okinawa or even our community, that says, 'These are the issues that are going on; these are the crimes that are going on.' We've got 20,000 people on this base, someone saw something."

People visiting the site can view the information OSI has posted, as well as submit information to them either anonymously or openly.

"We have links in there that take you to another program that is basically like a survey program," said Lt. Col. Joseph Laville, Kadena AFOSI Det. 624 commander. "You just fill out the survey, which asks you the basic questions."

These questions are as simple as what type of activity was seen, when and where it occurred, a description of the person(s) or vehicle(s) involved, and any other details that can be provided.

"Obviously we prefer people to provide their contact information, because we would like to go back to them [and] ask them for more details," Laville said. "But, if they do fill out this survey, [we ask for] as many details as possible to help us figure out what the issue is or what the crime is."

With such a large population, solving crimes can take more time than necessary for the OSI agents and 18th Security Forces Squadron members. However, the more people step up and give details of a situation, be it anonymously or by submitting their information, the more efficiently those on the case can resolve the issue.

"People can contribute to the protection of their community," Laville said. "You don't have to be an agent, you don't have to be an investigator, and you don't have to be a police officer. You just have to be concerned about the crimes that are occurring."