Welcome to Farm Watch.
It has been a busy last three weeks. The Ag-crooks have been pushing against us hard.
Before we get started, we added 15 new farmers and nurseries.
The first question we usually get emailed is, what is Farm Watch?
Simply put, Farm Watch is a crime fighting partnership between you, Law Enforcement, Fire, Farm Bureau and County Agricultural Commissioner Office.
E-Alerts are sent out for emergency situations such as fires and floods and with State Wide budget cuts, Sheriff's Departments across the state are faced with cut backs. Ventura County is no different.
In fact, a good example in Ventura County is an average historic ratio of one deputy for every 30 to 200 square miles of rural farm land. Ventura County Farm Watch came to the rescue as a system built on exponential multipliers.
What's that? ...Farm Watch has a multiplier effect that connects local rural deputies to more than 500 ranches, farms and nurseries in a 1800 square mile area. In a sense it is like having over 500 deputies helping to prevent crime and identify thieves in the same area.
Does it work? You bet, this same system is used by the military in our nations' fight against terrorism overseas.
Let’s get started.....
FIRE SEASON:
Make sure you are preparing your ranch plans, contact your local station and give them a ranch tour of protection zones.
CALL MONITOR:
Go to our website at VCSD.org and watch our live 911 call list, you can see why deputies are on calls in your neighborhood.
We haven't seen a three week period filled with so much Ag crime in a long time.
A local burglary ring is hitting us at an epidemic level. A few weeks ago we sent out an alert to all our farmers. It seems these crooks have a thirst for unattended seagoing storage containers used by most farmers.
We can catch them with your help.
Farm Watch Ten Point Plan of Attack:
#1 Prevention, Prevention, Prevention. Face the sea going storage box doors towards areas open to view of the caretaker, residence or any area where a deputy or farm worker can see the doors. Last week, the criminal ring used cutting torches to sever the locks and half inch steel protective metal shrouds. sadly, this was all within 150 feet of a occupied caretaker house. They did it late at night. the doors were facing away from the house and out of view. That farmer is getting a crane in to reverse the storage box so the doors face the house. the Sheriff's Department wants to thank our farm watch member for sharing his experience and simple crime fighting tip.
#2 If you have two storage boxes. face the door towards one another with just enough room to park a tractor or truck nightly between them and block the opening of the doors. Have your farm mechanic (usually you...) install a simple hidden kill switch so they cant hot wire the tractor or truck. This system worked on an attempt theft last week and at worst case slows them down.
#3. There are a new breed (no pun for our cattle ranchers) of locks made specifically for our common Connex style sea-going storage containers. The cost is between $60 and $80 dollars per padlock. They are resistant to bolt cutters and the crooks really have to spend some time on the ranch. The more time they spend, the more likely they are going to get caught. Google "sea going container locks" and you will find plenty of vendors.
#4. Use Technology. Lo-Jack offers farm packages for radio and GPS tracking of your tractors and trucks if stolen. Our rural Sheriff's police cars are equipped to work with Lo-Jack. Also available is Dewalt's Mobil Lock which offers remote sea-going storage box security systems that will email or text three addresses via a cell phone. local Security companies offer similar remote monitoring. This type of technology works in areas that have cell phone coverage. Can you hear me now? There are many other systems, let us know, and give us feed back to help one another...
#5. Contact Detective Ray Dominguez @ ray.dominguez@ventura.org or Tim Hagel at tim.hagel@ventura.org If you have farms, nurseries or ranches that have no caretakers or workers available at night and are using these storage boxes fro your fertilizer, or equipment. We can set up a plan and site visit to familiarize your local deputy so they can respond quicker with local knowledge of your operation, gates and combos.
#6. The Sheriff's Department will do a free on site, theft prevention visit to give you tips on farm theft exposures and remedies. Last week, deputies did three of these farm surveys and no doubt will make a difference in stopping future thefts.
#7. Mark your equipment with engravers. Record serial numbers of pumps, generators, chainsaws,weedeaters and welders. We are working with all our Ag equipment repair and parts houses and they can also alert us if suspicious persons come in for repairs on stolen equipment.
#8. Watch Craig's List for stolen equipment. Email Detective Dominguez ray.dominguez@ventura.org with "too good to be true" deals. We can set up a buy-sting and find where they are fencing your stolen equipment.
#9. Report suspicious vehicles on or near farms, particularly at night time. record license plates. If you see a truck on your farm roads at night with bolt cutters, they are likely our crooks. We can arrest them before they do a storage box burglary.
#10. Most important, share Farm Watch with neighbors. We need to stick together as a community.
Craig's List:
Attached is a local Craig's List scam. Don't fall for these tractor and UTV scams. They will go victimize other areas if they don't get any hits from Ventura County Farmers.
Farm Theft Summary:
Dufau Road. Burglars broke in and stole power equipment.
South Mountain @ Balcom. Many farms were hit in the last week. We went out four days in a row to different farms to take reports and collect evidence. We were able to recover some great evidence and have confirmed that these farms and ranches are all getting hit by the same burglar that is plaguing Santa Paula and Camarillo, Somis.
Edison Electric (SCE) Burglars stole a giant roll of electric wire and used heavy equipment. The wire was recovered miles away hidden on a farm orchard. Diligent Farm Watchers helped us and SCE out.
Berlywood Drive, Somis. Diesel theft. The suspect Jose Vasques was arrested in a stolen vehicle.
Brennan Road, Moorpark area. A nursery had the office was broken into and computers stolen along with other power machinery. The suspects used bolt cutters to get through a fence.
Redondo Ave, Santa Rosa Valley. A local guesthouse was broken into but the thieves left with nothing.
Tierra Rejada Valley. A horse ranch had a vehicle broken into and personal items were stolen.
South Las Posas Road. Oxnard Plains. 200 gallons of diesel stolen from a farm truck pony tank. The suspect was in a Chevy Astro van, unknown color .
vehicle.
Laguna Road. Farm workers caught a suspect stealing 12 volt batteries. He was apprehended because they were quick to call 911.
Santa Paula. Aliso Canyon, Foothill Road. Ranchers and farmers were hit by the same theft bandits victimizing us in Somis and South Mountain. They broke into many seagoing Connex type storage containers on different properties.
Piru. A rural business was broken into at night while workers were on the property. The stealth crooks got away with farm property.
MAP:
Take a look at the map that Sheriff Crime Analyst Karen Brown put together for us. Nearly every burglary or theft was a storage shed or barn. We haven't seen it this bad for eons. We have CSI and Karen working on trying to narrow down any clues we can get. It appears that our crooks are hitting any night of the week between 10 pm and morning daylight.
All of you pulled together when we were getting hit with metal thefts. We need to do the same now and find these burglars. A theft from one is a theft from all...
Be safe Farm Watch..
Tim Hagel