December 6, 2012 — Salt Lake City Police Chris Burbank talks about holiday safety in his last video message.

“The thing that’s important when we talk about safety — it’s a matter of awareness,” Burbank said. “It’s just reducing our risk and exposure to risk.”

In the two-minute “Chief’s Message” for December (above), Burbank offers safety tips specific to the holiday season, including:

• if making several trips to your car while shopping, be sure to stow packages out of sight; move your car within a mall’s parking lot between package drop-offs;
• consider adding serial numbers of high-end gifts to a home inventory sheet at the time of purchase;
• leave a few lights on while away from home for holiday parties;
• ask neighbors to keep an eye on your home if you take a holiday vacation;
• stop mail delivery while you’re out of town;
• make sure someone is home to receive mail-order packages or consider shipping them to a work address;
• and more important, if you’re going to drink this holiday season, please don’t drive. Celebrate wisely by choosing a designated driver or calling a cab at the end of the party.

These and many other holiday safety tips are included in the downloadable SLCPD Holiday Safety brochure.

Chief Burbank issues a monthly video message to talk about public safety issues and to help the public reduce its exposure to or mitigate the effects of crime. All of Chief Burbank’s video messages are archived on the newsroom page of www.police.slc.gov and the Chief’s Message playlist of www.youtube.com/saltlakecitypolice.

Contact: Reporters seeking comment should contact the Public Information Officer at 801.799.NEWS (6397).

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