A.L.E.R.T., which is an acronym for Area Law Enforcement & Retail Team being used by Shelby County Sheriff\u2019s squad, is sending a clear message to people committing crimes in Shelby County. It\u2019s targeted at copper crooks and appliance thieves to warn them that the units they may be thinking of stealing are equipped with a tracking system.<\/p>\n
The stickers read:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Property Contains Units That Are Equipped With A 24 Hour Tracking System.”<\/em> or<\/p>\n This Unit Is Protected By A 24 Hr. Tracking System Monitored By The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.”<\/em><\/p>\n A.L.E.R.T. is a specialized team that was created originally from an interested group of police officers who are with the Sheriff’s Detective Division and Uniform Patrol in Shelby, Tennessee. They specialize in stolen property, shoplifting, pirated music & movies, construction thefts, counterfeited jewelry & clothes, scrap metal theft and music albums.<\/p>\n The ALERT team will know immediately if a thief steals an object, such as an air conditioner, thanks to GPS tracking. The team has installed a number of GPS trackers inside appliances and air conditioners all over new home constructions and rental properties in Shelby County.<\/p>\n Each one is tagged with a shield sticker and properties have signs staked at them warning potential thieves. The team plans on implementing this clear across Shelby County with all the builders and business owners, according to ALERT Detective Bo Beck.<\/p>\n He hopes the stickers will make it clear to thieves that if they try to steal the items, they will get caught. He says they have a 98 percent success rate so far with the technology.<\/p>\n Bartlett, Tennessee’s Justin Wright reveals he attempted to steal an air conditioning unit that had one of ALERT’s tracking devices in it and it led them right to him. He confessed and also showed 104 addresses in two states to detectives. Each one of the stolen items was found thanks to the<\/p>\n ALERT’s tracking system. Wright is now doing 4 years for theft in the Shelby County jail.<\/p>\n According to Main St. Renewal, LLC’s regional property manager, Melissa Tilley, ALERT has rescued her many times recovering dozens of stolen appliances from her properties using the tracking system.<\/p>\n ALERT has a website (www.usalert.org) for law enforcement agencies, retailers, banking institutions, loss prevention staff, homebuilders and scrap metal recyclers to sign up. It has individual and state specific forums for any market that wishes to come up with new topics, much like a newsgroup site. These forums are put in place for members to post and view information on topics and incidents. The postings are photos, text messages or scanned items (booking photos, copies of checks, etc.).<\/p>\n The sheriff has a budget of $1,000 annually for GPS tracking. Its sign and sticker project is a one-time budget disbursement of $1,310 but does have possibility of being renewed based on the level of interest of property managers, builders and citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A.L.E.R.T., which is an acronym for Area Law Enforcement & Retail Team being used by Shelby County Sheriff\u2019s squad, is sending a clear message to people committing crimes in Shelby County. It\u2019s targeted at copper crooks and appliance thieves to warn them that the units they may be thinking of stealing are equipped with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-applications"],"yoast_head":"\n