MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon’s newly reconstituted Neighborhood Watch program now has approximately 20 volunteers, its coordinator Guy Hager told Mayor Matt Starr in a recent podcast.
“I'm hoping now that the weather's starting to warm up that we will get more,” Hager said on the "Chat With Mayor Matt" podcast. “We're trying to get the word out.”
The group now has a website: mountvernonneighborhoodwatch.com.
“You can get your training on the website,” Hager said. “There's a code of conduct that the police chief requested that's up on the website. It's a page and a half. It's a simple document. You read it, you electronically sign it and then you become a volunteer.”
Hager has offered to go along with volunteers on their first patrol.
He stressed the Neighborhood Watch is not a vigilante group.
“One of the things that we stressed in both the training and our conduct of operations is we take no action,” Hager said. “We are just eyes and ears. We're not authorized to stop a citizen and ask them what they're doing. What we are trained to do is if we see something, if it's a crime in progress, we dial 911. We don't stay, we don't watch. And then we have an incident form that we fill out on our website, and that allows the police to track where the reports have been made so they can see where the problem areas are and concentrate resources.“
Neighborhood Watch has divided the city into three zones. Volunteers typically do a one-hour patrol.
“You can drive around and see what's going on,” Hager said. “One of the things we train is that when you're on patrol, your radio’s off, your windows are down, you're listening, you're driving slow. You're just smelling for smoke. So we're the eyes and ears for the police and the fire department. We'd call dispatch with anything we would find.”
The Mount Vernon Police Department obtained 50 Neighborhood Watch signs, which are being installed.
Volunteers are also able to go on police ride-alongs, Hager said.
“There's a form that gets filled out,” he said. “They do a background check. I've had at least five volunteers go and they say it's eye opening.”
Hager was involved previously with Neighborhood Watch in Pennsylvania.
“I found that a very useful organization for partnering with the police,” he said. “I saw signs here in Mount Vernon. And when I contacted Neighborhood Watch, I found out that it was no longer active. So I wanted to start this, get some volunteers to watch the neighborhoods, to patrol the city and to work with the police to solve the problems and improve Mount Vernon.”
For more information, visit mountvernonneighborhoodwatch.com/.
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