The prosperous Bay Area city of Atherton, California, which has seen a dramatic increase in home burglaries this year, is using a unique method to catch the perpetrators.
The Atherton Police Department recently turned about 50 homes into “bait houses,” where they are embedding tracking devices on items of property they believe thieves will want to take.
“The idea behind this is that as soon as one of these items starts to be moved, we will receive a notification from the police department, which will begin our response,” said Atherton Police Commander Dan Larsen.
The department will then launch a drone to follow the tracking device. About 50 license plate readers installed throughout the small town would be able to detect the fleeing vehicle and provide a description, he said.
Resident and homeowner John Maulbetsch said he is impressed with the idea.
“Basically, I don’t really like surveillance, but I think this is an effective scheme,” he said.
Police acknowledge that bait houses are similar to bait cars, designed to attract car thieves, but said they are not trying to lure thieves.
“We’re not putting up houses where, ‘Hey! come here. This is the house we want you to rob. It’s a house where we work with the community and they say ‘Hey! we’re interested in this program,’” Larsen said. “We are going into their homes, embedding these tracking devices into things that are already inside the property, and as soon as they are taken, we will begin our investigation.”
The police department said more homeowners are saying they want to participate, enough that it plans to rotate different homes where it will place the bait.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
