Protect yourself during hotel stays

It’s important to do what you can to ensure your personal safety when in a hotel/motel room. Here are a few tips:

If the desk clerk says your room number aloud when you check in, ask for a different room and have the number written on your keycard sleeve and discreetly handed to you when other guests are present. If you feel uncomfortable walking to your room alone, ask the desk clerk to provide an escort.

Determine the most direct route to and from your room, to fire escapes, stairs, elevator and phones. Keep your door locked when you are in your room. Use the deadbolt and the security bar/chain.

Keep your windows locked and the blinds and drapes closed for privacy. Safeguard your room key or card at all times. Use the peephole in the door to identify anyone requesting entry.

In response to a recent event in Las Vegas, you are advised to check that the door to your room secures when it is closed and that it cannot be opened by simply pushing on it or turning the handle. Open the door only if you are certain it is safe to do so. If you are worried about being spied on through the peephole in the door, cover it with a piece of opaque tape.

If you haven’t requested room service or housekeeping and someone knocks on your door claiming to be a staff member, call the front desk to verify the claim before opening the door. If you receive a call about an emergency that requires you to leave your room, hang up and call the front desk to verify it.

Report any suspicious person or activities to the front desk. Don’t stay in a ground-floor room, especially if you are a woman and traveling alone.

It’s also important to safeguard yourself on elevators. Don’t get on an elevator with a stranger. If you do, stand near the control panel and be ready to press the alarm button and other controls if you are attacked.

July 5. Traffic hazard: An open manhole caused by a broken lid creates pandemonium in the travel lane until public works arrives with a replacement at 6:04 a.m. in the 100 block of Saint Jude’s Street.

DUI: The party is still going for some Independence Day celebrators, but the penalties are still the same at 8:49 p.m. in the area of U.S. Highway 93 and the overpass above U.S. Highway 95.

Thought for the day: It’s kind of ironic that independence celebrating helps lose it.

July 6. Suspicious: The caller sees two apparent vagrants carrying expensive-looking items toward an area where a camp has been spotted at 7:28 a.m. in the area of Foothill Drive and Yucca Street.

Assist: Officers are concerned about a large tent structure that appears to have been dislodged from a yard and is now precariously perched on the wall behind the residence at 2:58 p.m. in the 500 block of Shoshone Way.

Thought for the day: The transients are moving items from their storage unit to their new … (camp)?

July 7. DUI: The driver isn’t acting right, and the ole “walk and turn” helps determine why at 9:33 a.m. in the area of Colorado Street and Nevada Way.

Hit and run: The scene is chaos with pedestrians, trucks, sedans and even a boat involved, but the responsible driver has decided that home was a much better place to be at 12:29 p.m. in the 1600 block of Boulder City Parkway.

Thought for the day: The driver may have made it to home base, but that doesn’t mean he is out of the woods in regard to the bumper cars in the parking lot.

July 8. Accident: A broken manhole cover in the roadway renders one vehicle undrivable for the immediate future at 3:15 p.m. in the area of Saint Jude’s Street and U.S. 93.

Accident: The resident arrives on the scene to find a vehicle impaled on her wall, and the barefoot driver is limping away from the scene at 3:54 p.m. in the area of Adams Boulevard and Georgia Drive.

Thought for the day: It’s a bad week for manhole covers and automobiles.

July 9. Injury accident: Two vehicles are heading toward the great tow yard in the sky, and two victims are lucky enough to see another day at 3:27 p.m. in the area of the underpass on U.S. 95 at U.S. 93.

DUI: The traffic stop to warn for no headlights turns into a little bigger deal at 8:28 p.m. in the 1200 block of Boulder City Parkway.

Thought for the day: The drive-thru dinner turns into a McCell for the night.

July 10. Assist: A subject arrives to see if we can help retrieve belongings after the subject allowing them to stay is arrested at 2:08 p.m. in the 800 block of Buchanan Boulevard.

Vehicle theft: The caller returns to find the utility trailer gone from in front of their residence at 2:18 p.m. in the 1500 block of Darlene Way.

Thought for the day: Trailers are a prime target for theft, so keep them locked up and securely away from easy access for hookup.

July 11. Suspended driver’s license: Officers working saturation enforcement cite a driver and tow a vehicle for traffic-related issues at 7:19 a.m. in the area of the 215 Beltway and Stephanie Street.

Civil standby: Officers stand by to keep the peace when an employee is terminated due to false statements on an employment application at 3:19 p.m. in the 800 block of Buchanan Boulevard.

Thought for the day: Lots of vehicles are being towed these days due to driver’s license or registration issues.

Call(s) of the week: Suspicious circumstance: An unfamiliar man arrives and begins to back his vehicle in an attempt to tow away the neighbor’s trailer. He is confronted by a diligent neighbor, who is very aware that these trailers are targets for thieves. The man leaps into his own vehicle and speeds away in a hurry. Subsequent investigation reveals that the subject trying to pick up the trailer was sent by the owner, who forgot to inform his eagle-eye neighbor at 4:27 p.m. on July 7 in the 700 block of Kendall Lane.

Tina Ransom is a dispatcher with the Boulder City Police Department. She is coordinator of the Boulder City Citizen’s Academy.