August 20, 1998
Crime Watch Effort Needs Volunteers
By Timothy J. Baker
EFFORTS BY THE NSNA to create an active Crime Watch in the neighborhood will not succeed unless more people get involved.
That was the message last month from Community Police Officer Scott MacDonald.
Officer MacDonald is a member of the North Shore Neighborhood Association Board of Directors, and also heads up the NSNA Crime Watch Committee.
During a committee report, Officer MacDonald told the NSNA membership that more people are needed to make Crime Watch more effective, especially in the area north of 9th Avenue and east of 1st Street.
For at least the past several years, Crime Watch has been dormant in the North Shore neighborhood. When he joined the association Board of Directors at the beginning of this year, Officer MacDonald said he wanted to change that.
In his committee report, the officer said he would like to create a Crime Watch committee that could work to prevent crime before it happens, rather than always reacting to crimes that do happen.
He said he has gone over the crime statistics for the neighborhood for the past year and has determined that burglary is the most common crime in the area. So, he would like a Crime Watch committee that works to cut down on the number of burglaries.
Recently, he said, burglaries from vehicles (automobiles, boats and RVs) have been especially prevalent.
"You can probably help to alleviate some of the burglary problems in the neighborhood by keeping your car doors locked," he commented.
THAT IS THE KIND of work he would like Crime Watch to do: find out what type of crime is a problem in which areas; communicate that to the residents; and alert those residents to methods of preventing that crime.
Residential burglaries are also a major problem, Officer MacDonald said. One method of reducing burglaries would be to improve the lighting around a home, such as on porches.
"Burglars love darkness," he said.
In addition to better lighting around individual homes, better street lighting also can reduce burglaries, he said. He suggested that an active Crime Watch committee could work with the city and Florida Power to get exactly that in the areas where it is needed.
One of Officer MacDonald's goals is to get at least one active Crime Watch member from each of the dozen Crime Tracts that make up the North Shore neighborhood.
This, he said, would make it much easier to quickly alert the entire neighborhood to any new crime problems, or to alert a specific area if that was needed.
Anyone who would like more information on Crime Watch, or would like to become a member of the committee, can leave a message on Officer MacDonald's voice mail at 892-5929.
Two NSNA members who are also working on Crime Watch are Debra Disch in the southern part of the neighborhood, and Stephen Zsampar in the northern part. You can call Ms. Disch at 823-1800 or Mr. Zsampar at 898-8450.