Working together to stop crime.
That’s the idea behind the new Dent County Community Watch program being launched by Sheriff Bob Wells. Watch groups will be set up by neighbors for their county roads, subdivisions or neighborhoods.
“It’s basically a community-run thing,” Wells said. “We want to keep it simple. ‘If you see something, say something.’ That’s the gist of the whole thing.”
It’s not intended to make a law enforcement officer out of someone who isn’t, he stressed.
Participants are given a booklet showing how to organize their watch group. Members can display signs showing their area is protected. The first 30 signs are available for free. After those are claimed, the signs are $35 each.
A neighborhood is defined as two or more houses in close proximity. This can include several homes on the same street or a group of homes in the same general area. There is no set number.
Wells plans to break the county into four geographical sections, with a deputy assigned as the contact person for the people that live in each corner of the county. Participants will organize a meeting in their defined neighborhood and invite everyone within its boundaries, including representatives of businesses, churches and schools.
“Of course we’re more than happy to be involved in your meetings, particularly at the onset if you want to have us there for ideas or whatever the case may be,” Wells said. “We really don’t want to run the meetings. We’d like to have a person who takes charge in whatever their unit is, whether it’s a county road or a church group. But we’re more than willing to help with advice.”
Each group’s members can decide among themselves who their “go-to” person is for calling the sheriff’s office. “That way, if they have a problem, I won’t have 15 people calling in for the same car that’s driving through the subdivision,” he said.
Each group will have a chairperson and block captains with specific responsibilities. The chairperson arranges meetings and crime prevention programs, communicates information from the sheriff’s office to block captains and relays information from block captains to the sheriff’s office.
Watch members must be 18 or older and are subject to a criminal background check. Participants are not allowed to patrol, inspect a crime scene or confront or accuse a suspect. They are to notify the sheriff’s office and await the arrival of a deputy.
When calling in an incident, they must identify themselves as member of the Community Crime Watch, explain what happened and identify any suspects involved, and then stay on the line until the dispatcher has all the information needed.
The sheriff will have a Facebook page dedicated solely to the Crime Watch program.
“It will be a closed group so if we need to send out information to our Crime Watch people, we can,” Wells said. “We’ll have a phone tree set up for those numbers. If we end up in a situation with a child that’s gone missing or something happens where we need to be on the lookout for a vehicle or something, we’ll also message those people.”
He added, “We’re basically looking for information. We want the community’s input on what’s going on in their neck of the woods.”
When he first ran for sheriff, Wells thought a community watch program would be beneficial for county residents.
“It’s a way to get to know your neighbor a little better and watch out for each other,” he said. “That’s really the goal: to keep us in the loop if something’s going on in your part of the county that we may or may not be aware of.”
When a Crime Watch call comes in, deputies will respond either by phone or show up in person.
For more information, contact the Dent County Sheriff’s Office at 729-3421.
