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Health & Fitness

We Need Security Cameras at Darien's Train Stations

I think Darien residents deserve to have their property and personal safety protected by the extra security surveillance cameras would provide at the train stations.

Earlier this week, my husband decided to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather and rode his bicycle to the train station. Unfortunately, like many other commuters before him, the bicycle he left chained and locked was no longer there when he returned home from work. 

The Darien train station is actually a busy and well visible parking lot and thoroughfare so whoever decided to clip the chain and steal his bike must have known exactly what he or she was doing so not to attract any attention.  This implies to me that there are thieves targeting our train stations, not happening upon them while passing through town, looking for property to steal and more needs to be done to stop them.

Bicycle thefts and car break-ins at Darien’s two train stations seem to be a pretty common occurrence from what I read in the local news sources’ police blotters.    Surveillance video cameras at each of the train stations would provide a meaningful deterrence against such thefts as well as provide the police with potentially helpful information to identify the thieves.

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When at the Darien train station a few months ago (further escalating his cost of commuting this year…) there was an eyewitness who tried to report the driver’s license plate number as she sped away from the scene. Unfortunately, the reported plate number was wrong so the driver was never caught and we had to bear the high cost of repairing the car ourselves. Having a camera at the exit of the parking lot very well could have provided vital information to find that driver. 

After a quick Google search, I found out that Fairfield’s train station does have surveillance cameras and local police have posted video of thieves online to try to help apprehend them. While I am sure similar surveillance cameras at Darien’s trains stations would be expensive, could they possibly cost more than what our family has had to already pay this year to replace and repair our losses that occurred at the Darien train station?   

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I am sure we are not the only family in Darien who has incurred similar expenses as a result of crime at our two train stations. I think Darien residents deserve to have their property and personal safety protected by the extra security surveillance cameras would provide at the train stations. 

Editor's note: This was originally posted on Thursday. The time stamp has been changed for layout purposes on Darien Patch.

Darien police report a bicycle on July 16, a week before the one mentioned in this blog post.

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