KEY POINTS:
Bay of Plenty police have launched an advertising campaign to restore public trust and urge people to report crime.
Recovering from the stigma of disgraced former officers, the police are asking the public to phone 111 if they see anything suspicious as part of their See Something, Say Something campaign.
The Safe Tauranga group have funded the $20,000 billboard, newspaper and radio advertising in the Western Bay which includes Tauranga, Te Puke, and Katikati.
Whakatane in the Eastern Bay has also picked up the See Something slogan.
The billboards include messages such as "Don't let the paint dry, report the tagger", "Did he really lock the keys in the car" and "Stop bad driving and bad behaviour".
"We have had an upsurge in tagging," said the acting area commander, Senior Sergeant Dave Archibald.
"Some of the public might not think the police have time or are interested. For anyone who thinks those sorts of things are below our threshold, that's just not true and we want to make sure the public knows it.
"We can't do crime reduction alone, we really rely on the public."
Another example of crime police often didn't hear about until too late was when burglars knocked on the front door of a home before ripping it off, to con the neighbours into thinking a visitor was next door.
"Those are the ones we want to hear about," Mr Archibald said.
"If in doubt, phone us."
The campaign was spurred by a variety of factors including the results of a survey that showed public confidence in the police had slipped, Mr Archibald said.
Some people might also have stopped phoning 111 because calls went through to a communications centre rather than their local police station as they used to years ago.
The region also hopes to start an anonymous text line for crime tips.
"Anything that makes us more accessible, we want to hear from the public."
Disgraced former Western Bay officers include Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, who are out on parole after serving sentences for a 1989 pack rape at Mt Maunganui. Papamoa fireman Warren Hales was also convicted and has been released.
Schollum, Shipton and friend Clint Rickards, at the time an assistant commissioner, were cleared in 2006 of raping Rotorua woman Louise Nicholas in the 1980s.
And former Whakatane policeman Adrian Hilterman was last year convicted on charges of assaulting his wife.
Four Whakatane officers were last year found not guilty of assaulting Rawiri Falwasser in police cells in October 2006.
