Letter writer asks Antioch residents for help on a “real” community watch program
Dear Editor:
Hi, everyone I wanted to reach out and ask y’all what you think about an idea I have. I went by the Hudsons yesterday and had a moment to chat with a young lady that was collecting signatures for the recall and speed bumps. We chatted about how there is a group on the 11th block that looks out for the neighborhood and I expressed that I also was part of a smaller group on the 13th block. This made me wonder how I can make my city better. If I may digress slightly and briefly.
I’m an engineer, Eagle Scout and former Marine. The information that is being gathered is a huge asset to our cause of making our city a safe and desirable place to live. So, when I was over seas I was involved in some of the nastiest urban combat that our forces have ever seen but we made head way and took the cities back for the people to live safely and not in fear.
We would do things like walk and talks to get to know the people and show that we were approachable. We also frequently went to gathering places of the population, such as mosque, souks and bazarres to make contact with the population and the heads of households.
So, how can this help Antioch? Well, what I want to propose is if there aren’t any objections and that it’s all legal, why can’t we use the info gathered to start a real community watch program? This is an opportunity where we can have neighborhoods, all over the city, talking to one another and could work with our community policing officer with the APD to empower the people to take back our city.
I know from experience that if you empower the people and can get them all (the good guys) communicating you will have faster and lasting results that will make their communities safer and will give the enforcement agency, in this case APD, a better means in targeting problems and problem locations. This will empower us and create better community relationships with our police department and will make our city safe.
I would want to use this info to build on what formal neighborhood watch programs we have currently and do real meetings and classes once a month with APD and different parts of town to get the intel we can gather, to the people who can do something about it. So, if this sounds enticing let me know. Thanks for your time.
Patrick Wright
Antioch
This is the best article I have read in weeks. I’m glad there are people out there who want to make a true difference and sincerely care about the community.
We have Neighborhood Watch but it does not help much. In most Neighborhoods, only a few people are involved in Neighborhood Watch. Neighborhood meetings are rare unless you have someone in charge who is willing to plan & host meetings. When we do have a Meeting, it is very useful to everyone who attends. Do we actually have a Community Policing Officer?
I applaud Mr. Wrights approach and collectively working together, we can achieve great success. This has been identified from countless actions of other throughout history.
As a community, our ability is limited to the laws that surround us. In addition, I know of a parent who protected her child from a gang of kids when they attacked her daughter. Now she is being challenged in court by the County and a Non Profit group noting that she struck minors when she was doing was trying to remove the 5 girls that were beating up her daughter. Thus our community actions could result in personal attacks when all we wanted to do was to make our community safer. The laws of protectionism favors the wrong goers it appears.
Happy to assist and participate in any lawful movement to make our city better. But it must be done in a fashion that limits liability to those involved.
I know you may think I am crazy…what is crazy is the civil lawsuit this family is going through not to add the criminal investigating that is causing the Mom depression and not understanding how the law that should protect her daughter is protecting others that harmed her.
Simply stated…we need County peace officers in the schools, we need to have more CHP coverage on the freeways and CSO program initiated. Because it is obvious that we won’t reach our officer count ever.