Columbus residents wanting information on how to form a neighborhood watch will have a chance to learn Tuesday evening.
The city will hold a meeting in the Brandon Middle School auditorium at 6 p.m. Tuesday to instruct people on forming neighborhood watches. Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin and Columbus Police Department Community Officer Rhonda Sanders organized the meeting.
Gavin told The Dispatch the meeting is geared toward Ward 6 residents, but is open to any city resident. He said the meeting is not the first of its kind and Ward 6 has had neighborhood watches before. However, after some residents from the Holly Hills area contacted Gavin, he wanted to have a meeting to let people know how to set up watches.
Sanders said Columbus currently has five active neighborhood watches. She said she’s working to reactivate two inactive ones.
“People want to protect themselves,” Gavin said. “As crime goes down, people become relaxed. This is something that has to go on 12 months a year, five or seven days a week.
“We’ve done it before and a lot of people got interested,” Gavin later added. “That interest died down and we want to get it back. We have to realize this is something that just can’t be a passing deal.”
Sanders said interest in neighborhood watches has grown in recent months.
In November, Southside resident Julie Parker went before the city council to express downtown safety concerns after a woman was reportedly attacked by a man near the Riverwalk, and two people were robbed at gunpoint near Third Avenue South in a different incident.
A downtown neighborhood watch group has since started.
Sanders said she needs a point person to contact for any interested groups. She also said the police department will work with groups, but cannot manage them.
“The police department doesn’t have the manpower to man each watch, and that’s not how it’s built,” Sanders said. “It’s built for me to train people how to look for suspicious activity.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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