The Gainesville Police Department wants students to be prepared when the walking dead strike.
The GPD Crime Prevention Unit aired the first episode of its Zombie Campaign series Saturday on Police Beat, a GPD television show.
The video features Mikel Mazlaghani, a GPD officer, as he arrests zombies for stealing a bicycle, snatching a stereo out of a home and lifting a student's backpack from her car.
The campaign was designed to inform college students about the threat of burglary if cars, homes and bicycles are left unlocked, but with a pop culture twist, said GPD Lt. Art Adkins.
Adkins said 50 percent of vehicle burglaries that occurred in the first week of February in Gainesville happened because cars were left unlocked.
To raise awareness of burglary in the city, Adkins said Mazlaghani came up with the idea of sending out a crime prevention message through the use of a Hollywood icon: the zombie.
Ernest Graham, a GPD crime prevention officer, said the Zombie Campaign is a way to reach the student population.
"You take something serious, like property crime, and put a fun twist on it, like zombies, and that makes it entertaining," he said.
Property crimes are, a majority of the time, a crime of opportunity, she added.
Chas Reynolds, a 19-year-old chemical engineering freshman, was a victim of burglary in October when someone broke into his car and stole his iPod, a friend's iPhone, four credit cards and $100 in cash.
Reynolds said he thinks the Zombie Campaign will help prevent burglaries throughout the city.
However, Brian Ware, a 20-year-old information systems and operations management sophomore, does not see the new campaign in the same light as the department.
"I think the use of zombies is a little childish," he said. "Theft is a serious crime and should be treated as such, especially in raising awareness."
