County Neighborhood Watches started
Published 12:00 am Monday, May 9, 2005
NATCHEZ &045;&045; A new force of crime-fighting officers is throwing some kinks into the activities of Adams County criminals.
With three new Neighborhood Watch groups up and running in the county and three more planned, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office has a whole new list of informants &045;&045; and they are getting the job done.
Within weeks of its first meeting, the Neighborhood Watch group in the LaGrange subdivision had solved three burglaries, Sheriff Ronny Brown said.
Startup meetings have also been held in the Broadmoor subdivision and in Morgantown.
&uot;As soon as we started them people started calling,&uot; Brown said. &uot;We just wanted to do something for the people in the county and we need their eyes and ears.&uot;
Deputy Chuck Latham heads up the Neighborhood Watch program and attends every meeting the individual organizations have. He provides the watches with pamphlets and basic instructions on what the group should do and what to look out for.
&uot;Neighborhood Watch is really when the neighbors help one another,&uot; Latham said. &uot;Neighbors tell us what is going on, all we do is make the arrests.&uot;
The first group meeting in LaGrange had about 30 people, and the Morgantown meeting drew around 40, Brown said. Each group will choose their own captains who will run the meetings.
&uot;We found out that a lot of people don’t know their own neighbors,&uot; Brown said. &uot;Older people were afraid to call the sheriff’s office, but if they call we’ll send a car.&uot;
Groups are planned for Kingston, Cranfield and possibly Lake Montrose. Brown said he plans to work with the volunteer fire departments in the county to get the watch groups going.
Many areas within the city limits already have working Neighborhood Watch groups that assist the Natchez Police Department in solving crimes. Brown said the ACSO has visited some of the city groups and plans to have all county groups started by annual National Night Out in the fall.
Latham said statistics show that 75 percent of all crimes are solved with help from Neighborhood Watch groups.
Brown has attended the start-up meetings held so far and other deputies will visit the groups periodically to familiarize citizens with the officers.
The groups will meet once every other month and participate in periodic block parties. Brown said he wants to get county supervisors involved in the organizations and use community help to clean-up the county.
Residents are encouraged to call the ACSO if they hear loud music, see someone littering or speeding or witness a break-in or see suspicious activity.
&uot;That’s help we’ve been needing through the years,&uot; Latham said. &uot;Help from neighbors, we never gotten that.&uot;
Residents interested in joining the group can contact Latham at the ACSO at 601-442-2752.