NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH NIGHT OUT Schenectady 2012

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• published: 10 Aug 2012
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Schenectady's National Night Out Neighborhood Walk on August 07 2012 filmed by David Tanner SCHENECTADY GAZETTE August 08 2012 LOCAL NEWS : 'Night Out' event walks Goose Hill Neighborhood Watch critical to safety effort BY BETHANY BUMP Gazette Reporter When a child no older than 5 walked out of a Bellevue home and went missing last month, Schenectady police asked for the help of one of the city's most overlooked organizations. Wearing only a diaper, the child walked out during the annual festa at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, so city police were thankful to have extra eyes and ears they could count on. "With the help of Neighborhood Watch we were able to not only locate the child, but return the child back to mom and dad in a very short period of time," said Sgt. Michael McLaughlin. "It was something that would have commanded a lot of police resources in the past." The man who found the child — Sean Allen — is a member of the Mont Pleasant component of the Schenectady Neighborhood Watch and has specialized training in finding missing children and adults. The training is one of several services that make the city's Neighborhood Watch unique, and one it was proud to tout at a National Night Out event Tuesday evening in Goose Hill, the north end of Schenectady. Dozens of members from across 11 city neighborhoods gathered in Steinmetz Park to raise awareness for crime prevention in communities across the nation. The annual event is sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch and is designed to get people talking about the problems in their neighborhoods and how to solve them. "We're definitely on a recruiting drive," said Schenectady Neighborhood Watch President Frederic Lee. "It sounds impressive that we have 300 members, but we have almost 60,000 people that live here." He wants to grow the organization to 1,000 members, so that one in every 60 city residents has the training and observational skills to help prevent crime. FLASHLIGHT WALK A throng of local members marched along Lenox Road and through the city's Goose Hill neighborhood Tuesday night, their flashlights dancing in the dark and prompting peeks out windows. "We hope that people would look out and say, 'Where'd these people come from?'" said Lee. "It's a guerrilla marketing technique. We constantly hear this: 'I didn't even know we had a neighborhood watch in this city.' So hopefully this lets some people know." Bellevue has the largest representation in the organization with about 40 members. And the Hamilton Hill, Mont Pleasant and Central State neighborhoods have all played host to National Night Out events in the past. So Lee chose the north end as this year's host since it's one of the lesser-represented neighborhoods. It was maybe five years ago that David Tobey saw the sense in joining Neighborhood Watch. Several residents of "North Park" had begun noticing what looked like drug dealing activity within the streets north of Central Park and up to Eastern Parkway that they called home. "It was really very grass roots," said Tobey, 41. "There was already an email list for the block and some of the neighbors were sending out an email chain that this was happening." And though criminal activity has shifted from drug activity to car and home burglaries now, he considers it a simple and practical organization for him to be a part of. Schenectady police and firefi ghters benefit from an expanded organization, too. Whether neighborhood watch members are responding in minutes to a child or adult search team, or they're mobilizing July 4 patrols for illegal fi reworks going off, or they're calling in when a storm comes through and knocks down power lines — it means less city resources and quicker response times. "We have this successful relationship because if we need information or need assistance and know that they have skills in fi nding a child or something else, we can reach out and get the neighborhood watch involved," said McLaughlin. "We say this is what we're looking for and maybe you can assist us." In October, the organization will kick off a fund raising campaign for a mobile command post.