The Auburn Police Department hosts a free community forum from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at the Auburn Senior Activity Center, 808 Ninth St. SE.

The forum is designed to educate residents on the best ways to prevent theft and burglary from their persons, homes or vehicles.

“Most property crimes are crimes of opportunity,” Sgt. Les Muterspaugh said. “If we can help people reduce the opportunity, we can reduce these types of crimes in Auburn.”

Auburn Police report that these types of crimes have been on the rise in recent years. They hope to provide useful, easy-to-implement prevention strategies for citizens and neighborhoods to better protect themselves and their belongings from being stolen or damaged.

Some of the topics to be covered are prevention of:

• Auto theft

• Residential and commercial burglary

• Workplace and retail theft

• Fraud and forgery

• Identity theft

• Theft of firearms and illegal possession of firearms

The forum will consist of a presentation from Auburn Police detectives, followed by a question and answer period to address further concerns.

“We want to let our citizens know what we are seeing out there and help them decrease their chances of becoming a victims,” Muterspaugh said. “The police department wants to ensure that all of our citizens and their belongings are safe.”

Registration is not required, but space will be limited.

For more information on forum, contact the Auburn Police Department at 253-931-3080.

More information about the Auburn Police Department can be found at www.auburnwa.gov/police.