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Neighborhood Anti-Crime Camera Network Helps In Pleasanton Porch Pirate Bust

PLEASANTON (KPIX 5) -- Police in Pleasanton recently busted two porch pirates for allegedly snatching packages from people's homes after an assist from an anti-crime network made up of neighbors.

The people who live in the city's Laguna Oaks subdivision are taking the idea of a neighborhood watch to the next level, and they have dozens of arrests to show for it.

"The clips we are seeing, they are clips from various locations," neighborhood network organizer Christopher Gleaser said of his latest assembly of video clips. "Some of them are from some of the homes, some are from the clubhouse where we get the license plates."

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When the suspects driving the Audi in those video clips rolled into main entrance to Laguna Oaks, they probably had no idea they were being watched every step of the way, right up to the porch, and right out of the neighborhood.

Pleasanton package theft suspects
Maria Cisneros, Vyacheslav Sey (Pleasanton Police Dept.)

According to Pleasanton Police, the driver of that car was 26-year-old Hayward resident Vyacheslav Sey. The passenger was identified as 35-year-old Tracy resident Maria Cisneros.

Police said a search of their car produced stolen mail from Pleasanton, fraudulent checks and a stolen package. They were both arrested and were taken to the Santa Rita Jail.

"10 years ago, it was more theft from autos," Gleaser said of his neighborhood's crime challenges. "Obviously with Amazon, packages on front doors are far more common now."

It was Gleaser who decided that if one camera was good, more cameras would be better. There are now dozens of cameras set up across the neighborhood, but the real trick is that those cameras are now integrated together into one network.

"We have a license plate camera and we have a high-resolution camera and we have an infrared source so we can get license plates out to 200 plus feet," Gleaser said, describing some of the cameras. "One for the entrance, one for the exit."

It's not just the streets and porches. Even some of the mailboxes here are plugged in.

"Starting at 10 p.m., if any of the mailboxes in the neighborhood start opening, we use a mesh network," Gleaser explained. "All the information goes to the clubhouse. That goes to a monitored alarm system and the alarm company will call us."

Gleaser himself has an engineering background.

"Yeah, I mean, I love problem solving," Gleaser said. "This is just another problem to solve."

The two suspects arrested in the latest videos are only the latest to land in custody as a result of the system.

"In the last 10 years in this neighborhood alone, we have 55 arrests," said Gleaser.

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