Chief's Community Update - March 26, 2023
Thank you for visiting our website and taking a moment to read this community update.
As we enter the final week of our Community Roundtable survey I want to publicly thank community member Antoine Brooks for proposing this idea to me, building the survey, and managing the responses. I greatly appreciate your leadership Antoine. Please help us make one last push to get more survey responses before the survey closes on March 31, 2023
As our community continues to endure severe weather and power outages, please continue taking care of your neighbors and reporting issues to our city team. I highly encourage everyone to sign up for SMC Alerts to receive Important Messages and Emergency Alert Notifications from San Mateo County Central Dispatch and Emergency Management. As of last week, our East Palo Alto community only had 1,375 people signed up to receive alerts. To register, please use Sign Up - Smart911. Registration is easy and allows people to select the language and type of notifications.
Anonymous tips and immediate service
We appreciate all the anonymous tips we have been receiving. It is important to note that anonymous tips are not a resource for immediate police response as it is not monitored 24/7. For immediate police response, either call 9-1-1 or our non-emergency phone number 650-321-1112. For complaints related to property violations, please contact Code Enforcement department, which operates under our building department (https://www.cityofepa.org/building/page/code-enforcement).
When providing information to the police, we need specific information about the crime or criminal. As an example, if you are reporting someone for dealing drugs, we need to know:
- where and when they are selling the drugs
- a detailed description of them (white female, blue jeans, red jacket, baseball cap)
- any description of a vehicle
- any other information you have about the crime.
While we don’t expect you to jeopardize your safety to get this information, it is very important information if we make an arrest. Not only will your tip provide us with accurate information about the suspect, but we are also able to serve as a witness to the crime and we can testify in court. Please use these options for providing an anonymous tip.
You can make an anonymous tip to the police by calling or texting to (650) 409-6792.
If there is a topic you would like addressed in the next update, please feel free to send an email at jliu@cityofepa.org.
Thank you,
Jeff Liu
Interim Chief of Police
