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To protect and snap!
Cops in one Brooklyn precinct will channel their inner shutterbugs next week when they launch a new operation to get residents to lock up their brownstones and put away pricey items in parked cars.
Eagle-eyed cops from the 76th precinct, which includes Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, will walk down streets that have struggled with car break-ins and burglaries and hunt for easy targets for thieves.
If police spot an iPad or packages in the passenger seat of a parked car, they try to find its owner — and if not, they will snap a picture from the sidewalk.
Using the car’s license place to track down the owner’s address, the precinct then sends the owner a flyer that says “if we spot it, so can thieves” — and the picture taken by the cops.
“We’re trying to think outside the box,” said Captain Jeffrey Schiff, who announced the educational operation at a community council meeting last night. “The whole idea is to prevent the crime from happening in the first place.”
To zoom in on grand larcenies, the precinct will deploy a team made up of community affairs cops in blue jackets, as well as a uniformed anti-crime officer and cops on the conditions unit.
They will visit apartment buildings and brownstones, and check the vestibules for broken, open, or unlocked doors.
If police find an open or unlocked door, they will ring the doorbell and ask residents to lock up. If no one is home, they will mail flyers to their building — as well as anti-crime pamphlets.
Cops hope that the additional police presence on streets struggling with break-ins will also scare away thieves. Schiff noted that grand larcenies most frequently happen between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
His command is down almost 40 percent in major crimes during the past 28 days.