Do you know how Irvine became the Safest City in America?
Sure, of course, practice … but also worth considering is how the Irvine Police Department is always thinking.
Take its new E-Commerce Exchange Zone.
Perhaps you have read (even on this site) about crooks who post or respond to online classified advertisements, arrange to meet at a designated spot and then end up robbing the would-be buyer or seller.
Irvine’s coppers sure know about such crimes. For instance, in 2014, they arrested Arnold Min Baek for allegedly stealing nearly $20,000 from people who’d responded to Craigslist ads he’d posted advertising a Mercedes and Rolex watch for sale.
Well, in hopes of making e-commerce transactions, the department created an E-Commerce Exchange Zone, which is located–get this!–in the parking lot adjacent to IPD, 1 Civic Center Plaza.
“The area is clearly marked and is equipped with high-definition cameras that record activity 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” reads the IPD announcement. “The video feed from the cameras can be seen in IPD’s Communications Center.”
There is no fee nor a reservation required to use the E-Commerce Exchange Zone, but should you have questions about it, call the IPD front desk at 949.724.7000 or visit irvinepd.org.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.