Company Wants Cascade Corridor Crime Alert System

In the wake of this week’s shooting death of a prominent Cascade businessman and associate pastor, a social enterprise company is looking to build a crime alert notification system across the Cascade corridor.

“Village Defense is aimed at building real-time crime alert networks through neighborhoods and retail districts,” said Sharath Mekala, president of the company. On March 1, 2011, Village Defense was contracted by the owners of Cascade Crossings Shopping Center and Sandtown Shopping Center to provide emergency crime or suspicious activities notifications to its tenants. The company also contracts its services to local homeowners and residential associations and organizations.

Village Defense offers two different services: one for neighborhoods, and one for retail districts/shopping malls. If a resident in a neighborhood witnesses suspicious activity or a crime being committed, they are first instructed to call 9-1-1 and then to call the Village Defense Hotline. A 24/7 live operator will take the message, and within seconds, send a blast in the form of a text message, cell phone call, and land line call to all residents in the neighborhood, allowing everyone to be informed, in real time.  

The system works similar in a retail shopping center setting, where store employees make the call to the Hotline, and the alert goes out to all tenants in their shopping center, and surrounding shopping centers, creating a zone of witnesses.

"We're trying to build a corridor of these zones that can tie into police efforts," Mekala said.

Earlier this week, Derek Moses, a Cascade-based businessman and associate minister of Providence Missonary Baptist Church, was shot to death in his office. Police are still looking for his assailant.