'Safe Zones' Spring Up After Craigslist Murders, Other Crimes

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Police agencies across the country are opening their parking lots as safe zones for residents to finalize transactions they’ve brokered on Craigslist and other online classified sites in response to an alarming trend among criminals to target their victims online.

Many of the crimes are petty thefts or crimes involving counterfeit merchandise, but some criminals have more sinister, terrifying motives.

For example, in one high-profile case this spring, a fetus was cut from the womb of a Colorado woman who went to another woman’s house to buy baby clothing advertised on Craigslist. In another, a Georgia couple were killed while trying to buy a classic car on Craigslist.

The national move to take transactions to well-lit areas under video surveillance, such as the nation’s police parking lots, is one the classified site apparently backs. Craigslist updated its safety page earlier this year and encouraged users to make high-volume transactions at local police departments.

Also on Patch:

• Police: Woman Who Met Man on Craigslist Covered Up Murder with Fire
• Citing Craigslist Crime, Novi Police Open Police Parking Lots

In Michigan, police agencies are lining up to offer the service to residents of their communities.

Police in Lansing were the latest to designate an Online Transaction Exchange Zone in its parking lot. Other communities in southeast Michigan have made similar provisions, including Ferndale, Novi, Troy, Sterling Heights and Southfield.

“This a lot better than meeting someone in a parking lot in the middle of the night,” Robert Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police told The Detroit News. “Many police stations are even putting in ATMs for safety reasons.”

Police parking lots generally have 24-hour video surveillance, but the fact that police, while not physically overseeing the transaction, are nearby, is enough to scare off most criminals, Stevenson said.

“... If the person is willing to meet you at the station,” he told The Detroit News, “you know you can have a good feeling about the exchange.”

Troy Police Chief Gary Mayor told WDIV-TV criminals often target victims through online sites like Craigslist. “The bottom line is that you don’t know who you are doing business with and extra safety precautions should be taken,” he said.

Novi police, who opened both the lobby of their police station and the parking lot for transactions, cited a 2010 study linked Craigslist, which at the time had about 50 million users, to 330 crimes, including 12 murders and 105 assaults and robberies in the United States.

Craigslist isn’t the only online commerce site, but it is the largest with more than 700 local websites in 70 countries. There are 50,000,000 Craigslist daily queries worldwide, and 40 million new classified ads are published every month on the site, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute.

Additional safety tips for those conducting a transaction with an unknown buyer include the following:

• Only accept cash or a cashier’s check for sale. Personal checks carry some risk.
• Conduct sales during weekdays so banking or financial institutions can be contacted if there is a problem.
• Don’t go alone and trust your instincts.

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Photo illustration via Flickr