By James Feichtner

Buying or selling items from strangers met online can often be risky business. With various stories popping up around the country of encounters going bad, it’s no wonder the Fishers Police Department recently decided to offer their station as a safe meeting zone for residents to do such transactions.

“There wasn’t any specific incident here in Fishers that spawned this,” FPD Sergeant Tom Weger said. “We had been approached by a couple of residents that inquired if we offered such a service. Since we knew there was an interest we thought we would put something together, do some research and provide the service.”

The FPD announced on Sept. 3 that they will be offering both the lobby of their station as well as their front parking lot for residents to conduct internet transactions.

“Our lobby is very well put together for meetings of that assortment so we felt like if people wanted to have a safe place to do those types of transactions, especially during business hours, then the lobby would be available for that,” Weger said. “Then, after hours, they can use the front parking lot because it is monitored via surveillance camera.”

The lobby will be open for use for transactions Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. While there will be police staff on duty, officers will not be participating in transactions.

“There is staff here, but we’re not going to assist with every transaction. If someone has an issue then they can obviously come up to the window and speak with an officer, but were not going to have one there [with them],” Weger explained. “If there was some type of altercation then that’s where we would step in but we wouldn’t get involved to determine fairness.”