Neighborhood Watch - Community members help form police department
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
March 31, 2009
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A few years ago, Bowie didn’t have a police department and John Durning and other members of the Nashua Lane community, looking to bolster the presence of law enforcement on their streets, formed a neighborhood watch. Now the city has its own force and the neighborhood watch program has local contacts with police. In December, the group swapped its county neighborhood watch signs with Bowie Police Department signs.
Was there a particular event that caused you to get the neighborhood watch ball rolling?
We had a couple of individuals in the neighborhood who were victims of mail fraud and break-ins. We got together and decided we needed to try to protect ourselves.
How does the watch group operate?
We meet every other month and have various speakers from the police department and the sheriff’s office who talk about crime prevention and personal safety. We have a close connection with the Bowie police. When there’s a crime in the neighborhood, we notify everyone through an e-mail distribution list. Neighbors generally just keep an eye out for each other, particularly when someone is away on vacation. We have 160 houses, broken down into seven zones with captains putting information together for the general list or just their zones.
Do you think it works?
We had a recent incident involving three teenage boys who broke into homes. Everyone became aware of it through an alert on the e-mail list. The information campaign helped the parents catch wind of it and they made the boys give everything back. When everyone is aware, it makes it more difficult for criminals to operate in our backyards. ... There’s new houses being built and we’re hoping to add them so they can integrate into our community, too.
