+1 for the Neighborhood Watch

[kikr]

I moved into my neighborhood about 4 months ago. It’s a basic middle class neighborhood that I really liked because it’s only 15 minutes from the college my fiancée attends, the grade school, middle, and high schools are only a couple of blocks away, there is a police substation, fire station, library, several convience stores, and a supermarket all within a mile from the house. There was two houses on the block that made us nervous though. One was about half way down the block from us, 4 houses down. It had a constant traffic of cars that would pull up in the yard for a few minutes then pull off. There were some 20 males that “lived” in the house, every afternoon they would spread out and walk the side streets and cars would stop and talk to them constantly. I started complaining about the house about 2 weeks after moving in and got introduced to the chairman of our neighborhood watch program. Between the two of us, we’ve filed almost 30 complaints against this house ranging from cars blocking other peoples driveways to a kid walking around the front yard with an AK47. About 3 weeks ago, I noticed that one of the younger kids would stand in the front yard or on the corner across the street and when a car would pull up, someone in the car would hand out a paper bag. The kid would walk around the house to a junk car parked in the yard, drop that bag into the back seat and pick up another bag from the front. I reported this to our liason officer and the car was towed that evening. 32 “8 balls” of crack was confiscated along with $1500 cash and two handguns. A week later I witnessed a shooting around the corner from here while walking the kid home from school. One of the shooters was one of the guys that lived in the house. He was arrested and released the same day. Well…yesterday afternoon the house was raided, they arrested 12 people, confiscated almost a kilo of cocaine, an unknown amount of marijuana, cash, an AK47, a couple of other rifles, and some handguns. The other house was an middle aged woman whose husband is a truck driver, whenever he’s on the road she’s either out with the boys from the other house, or their at hers. She was stealing electricity from an empty house across the street. I reported it once before but could only get through to an answering service. They arrested 3 people from her house, (including her), confiscated all her vehicles, and both houses have been put on notice under the citys DART program.

There are some details I’ve left out for brevity but I guess the whole point I’m trying to make is that reporting incidents to the police does work. Not always immediantly but it does make a difference.

 

[up_onus]

good to know

good to know that your neighborhood is safer, good to know those criminals are still that stupid, and good to know that neighborhood watch still works!
thanks!

 

[beerslurpy]

Good work. Most people turn a blind eye rather than fighting the good fight.

 

[Oldtimer]

Yes, the "Neighborhood Watch" programs DO work, but they have to be coordinated properly. It sounds like your neighborhood has superb cooperation and the willingness to make it work!

I was an LAPD "Senior Lead" officer, and was responsible for holding NW meetings in the community. It was a good way to establish a "bond" between the police and residents, and even though I have been retired for almost 5 years, I still keep in touch with many of the NW folks (I live about 25 miles away from that community, but I go to several of their meetings per year....now as a private citizen).

One particular NW group was about 90% anti-gun when I first started going to their meetings. They were "surprised" when I started talking about gun ownership in a POSITIVE manner, at least at first!
After awhile, a few of the anti-'s who were curious about my stance on guns decided to open their minds a bit. They had a group of 6 that went through a gun safety course, and 5 out of the 6 liked it so much that they BOUGHT firearms! I "treated" those 5 (and their wives or girlfriends) to a guided tour of the LAPD academy, and was able to get them some "range time" there. The next NW meeting that I held for that particular group was really a surprise, for several other anti-'s had signed up for gun safety courses! Just before I retired, that NW group had completely turned around, to about a 90% PRO-gun group!

"Participation" is a necessity! If your neighborhood has regularly scheduled meetings, make an effort to attend! It's a good way to meet your local police AND to get to know your neighbors. If your city is large enough, they may have combined meetings for the smaller NW groups. Those meetings might be held in school auditoriums or privately owned conference-sized rooms. The largest NW meeting that I "emcee'ed" was over 400 people! WOW!

 

[Chipperman]

Good job. Was the "AK47" full-auto?

"All it takes for good to triumph is for good people to do something."

 

[kikr]

Oldtimer, your absolutely right about the participation and coordination. My work schedule doesn't allow me alot of free time so I can't claim any credit for the coordination. Thats all done by one of the gentlemen in the neighborhood. He's retired LEO and has lived in the same house for 30ish years. He does an awesome job. Our NW has a JSO liason that attends every meeting, plus we have a city councilman that attends regularly. He's coordinated for representatives from various organizations to attend for various events, power outages, junk car removal, street light repair, etc. Our attendance is good but not great. We regularly have about 50 folks show up, and unfortunately most of them are the retired and longer time members of the community, we are working on recruitment and getting some of the younger members to attend.

I've been pretty outspoken about some issues, mostly the crime and stray dogs but havent earned enough credibility yet to talk about gun ownership...not much longer though. I have offered to teach self defense classes and am coordinating them now so we'll see how that goes.

Chipperman, No it was semi thankfully. I shudder at the thought of some crackhead with a fullauto. Then again maybe it wouldn't be too bad...remember the morons that stole an M-16 from a national guardsman during the LA riots and shot all his buddies trying to use it in a driveby?