Those familiar with the Tustin Police Department know that we employ a CTAPS model of policing. CTAPS is an acronym for Crime/Traffic Analysis & Policing Strategies. CTAPS uses geographical information and is intended to map and link criminal activity. In regular meetings, ranking police officials meet with Area Commanders to discuss crime and traffic trends, and concerns. Simply put, we use it to put “cops on dots” which means we direct our resource...s to areas experiencing abnormal crime spikes.
The Laurelwood Homes and the immediate surrounding area is usually an area that experiences very little crime, but at our CTAPS meeting held on August 10, a crime spike was identified. There were eleven (11) reported property related crimes in the past 2-3 weeks which is unusual for that area. These crimes all involved vehicle related thefts such as window smash burglaries, theft from unlocked vehicles, abandoned stolen vehicles and the theft of the vehicle itself.
It was determined that effective immediately; officers would saturate the area as much as possible using both high visibility uniformed patrol and covert methods. Several hours later at approximately 2:30 A.M. Officer Michael Fitzpatrick was slowly patrolling the streets of the Laurelwood Homes when dispatch advised him a resident had called to report a suspicious occupied vehicle parked near the caller’s home. Officer Fitzpatrick arrived three (3) seconds after he received the call (yes, a three second response time) and he quickly located the vehicle in question.
He contacted the lone occupant and noticed a hypodermic syringe in plain view inside the passenger compartment. The occupant was nervous and explained he was visiting a friend in the area but was unable to provide details as to the friend’s entire name or where he lived. Officer Fitzpatrick called in the license plate and was advised by dispatch that the vehicle was reported as being stolen from Santa Ana earlier in the day. The suspect was arrested and when searched, Officer Fitzpatrick located a bindle of methamphetamine inside his pants pocket.
The suspect, Fadi Qasir age 26, resident of San Clemente was arrested and booked on charges of vehicle theft, possession of methamphetamine, and possession of narcotic paraphernalia. Qasir also had outstanding arrest warrants for theft and contempt of court out of both San Diego County and Orange County.
Detectives will conduct follow-up investigation to determine if Qasir can be linked to any of the other previously reported crimes in the area. Thanks goes out to the alert resident who called, and well done Officer Fitzpatrick!
