Crime Alert Via SMS
Yesterday, I received the following SMS from an ex-colleague who is a resident of USJ..
The message received on 29.08.2006 at 04:29pm as follows:
-Orginal Message-
Urgent! If you c car WFExxxx (I delete car registration number) wira aeroback green col pls cal2d police!A18yrs chi.gal jst kidnapped by5malays at parade rooftop carpark
My first reaction was, Is this authentic? Who can verify? Parade? Does that mean Subang Parade or Klang Parade? I was made to understand that recently USJ crime watch has activated the so-called SMS crime alert whereby residents have to subscribe to get the alert and residents are not supposed to forward the SMS. Is this SMS originated from the USJ crime alert team? I was wondering. (I do not subscribe the alert because I am not a resident of USJ/SJ).
At a glance, the quick spreading of this news via SMS is a great way to fight crimes, that is if the kidnapped girl’s life is endangered. However, what if the SMS is a crank alert, the life of the driver of the said vehicle will be endangered instead. As such, I did not forward this SMS to anybody, having no one to verify for me.
Today, I found out that the the SMS was indeed authentic and it was reported in theStar. However, as reported in the news, the abduction actually happened on Monday (28.8.2006), and the girl was released unharmed on the same day. The SMS came in a day late and the "parade" was actually Ipoh Parade. The State CID chief verified that. However, there was no verification on the vehicle registration number.
What amazed me was the way the news spread like wild fire, and I must laud the police (from almost all the states in the west coast) for not taking any chance and swing full force into action to the "rescue".
This "incident" is an eye opener to me and I shouldn’t take this kind of alert for granted. In future, if I receive such alert via SMS or email or any other media, I would just forward it to Rakan Cop Hotline at 32728.
