Property crimes including home burglaries, car prowl and auto thefts are a common occurrence in North Highline, and King County law enforcement is making a push to encourage blockwatch programs to help them keep an eye on residential streets.
During a public safety forum on Feb. 9 hosted by the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council, White Center’s Storefront Deputy BJ Myers presented his case to take the leap, meet some neighbors and form a pact to help keep an eye on each other’s safety.
“You get to know your neighbors; it’s not just relying on the eyes of law enforcement to deal with problems in the neighborhood,” Myers said. “It is one of the most effective and least costly methods of law enforcement in the nation.”
A blockwatch can come in many forms, from organized to loosely knit, from a few people on the block to a small army. Beyond watching out for each others safety in the face of property crime, blockwatches can also prepare a plan for natural disaster and help each other out in the inevitable downtime before outside help can arrive (around here, of course, a major earthquake is the main concern).
“It can be highly organized … with regular meetings and agendas … to just a group of people that know each other and communicate pretty well and get together once a year in August to have a big party,” Myers said. “The strength of it relies on being able to communicate with each other, knowing who your neighbors are, and if what you see walking by their house is unusual, it gives you the confidence to call 911.”
With today’s technology, it is also easy to communicate with one another through an email list or private Facebook group.
Gil Loring, a White Center resident since 1998 and blockwatch captain for the past six years, said his blockwatch was of the informal ilk, generally only meeting during the Night Out celebration in August (when block residents come out of their homes to congregate as a whole) for an occasion he described as “very casual – bring food and drinks and kids and dogs and sit down and talk for a few hours.”
Besides the social aspect, Loring said, “blockwatch is basically looking around and seeing what is going on in the neighborhood.”
The concept is that you know your streets the best and you would be the first to know if something seemed out of place - from a slowly creeping vehicle on a Tuesday afternoon to someone snooping around your neighbor’s garage.
Deputy Myers encouraged anyone who is interested in joining a blockwatch, forming a blockwatch, or letting it be known you already have one going and would like more people to join to contact him.
He can be reached at Benjamin.myers@kingcounty.gov or (206) 296-3333 (office).
