When you’re away from home, you might have an extra set of eye looking out for you.
Turns out, Omaha Police are working with an unlikely partner: your waste collector.
Think of it as “crime watchers on wheels,” according to Rebecca Hoeft, a lead swing driver and trainer for Waste Management.
REALLY like this program. Waste drivers & #OPD launch Waste Watch. Similar to neighborhood watch program. @3NewsNowOmaha pic.twitter.com/PKiVA5TjqD
— Shawnte Passmore (@ShawntePassmore) March 30, 2017
The program is called “Waste Watch.”
Starting Thursday, its drivers will collect more than trash. They’ll be on the lookout.
Deffenbaugh Industries, Inc., owned by the waste company, trained their drivers a few hours before they’re shift started in the morning. An FBI agent joined Omaha Police in the rollout, sharing crime and safety tips.
Anyone walking around the neighborhood you haven’t seen before? A stranger approaching house?
“They approached us and notified us about the program that they had. And we looked at it and basically heard their pitch and it is something that will benefit the citizens of Omaha,” said Lt. George Merithew with Omaha police.
When you've been in the neighborhood week after week, Waste Management’s Paul Howell says, you get to the know the area.
Since 2004, Waste Management's program is found in more than 270 U.S. cities. Adding Omaha to the list, drivers are equipped with radios and phones – just in case they could be someone’s lifeline for help.
On any given day, waste collectors will visit more than 500 places. With covering a lot of ground, they're told to observe and report anything suspicious like counterfeit money; someone casing a dumpster belonging to a business; and sometimes weird things end up in the trash as drivers have learned.
"There was a driver and helper that had found a firearm that was buried in the trash and it was loaded,” Hoeft says.
Even if they think their suspicion might be nothing, phone it in, according to the program’s trainers.
But Omaha police and Waste Management say: this program isn't about becoming an enforcer of the law, just being an extra set of eyes for the streets.
It's still in with the trash and hopefully out with the crime.
For more information, click here.
In a nutshell, Waste Watch program: observe & report, according to former FBI agent @3NewsNowOmaha pic.twitter.com/GukueFZplh
— Shawnte Passmore (@ShawntePassmore) March 30, 2017
