CARLTON FLETCHER: APD encourages watch groups to help in fight against crime

Private eyes, they’re watching you. They see your every move.

— Hall and Oates

“You don’t bother us enough.”

With those words, Albany Police Department Deputy Chief Donald Frost issued a challenge to some 58 neighborhood watch participants who came to Sherwood Acres Elementary School last week for a joint meeting of several watch groups.

The attendees got plenty for their time: Crime prevention tips from Frost and APD Chief John Proctor, an update on the pending Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline project from Dougherty County Commission Chair candidate Gloria Gaines, and information on District 4 Dougherty School Board candidate Melissa Strother’s “Little Libraries” literacy project.

Ward III City Commissioner B.J. Fletcher said the impetus for the joint meeting of the Sherwood Acres and Hilltop Neighborhood Watch groups and members of other nearby neighborhood groups was one of necessity.

“I inherited 12 neighborhood watch groups, and all of them are extremely vital to our community,” Fletcher said. “I want to go to as many meetings as I can, find out what the citizens of Ward III are concerned about, but it usually turns out that all of them meet on the same Monday nights. I’ve asked groups if they could hold joint meetings so I would have an opportunity to meet with as many of them as possible.

“It’s certainly up to the individual groups, but I know some of the other groups are talking about combining as well. I’m not pressuring anybody to do that; it’s totally up to them.”

There were murmurs of surprise — and later expressions of appreciation — from the neighborhood watch participants when Frost told them, “You need to get more nosy. This is your police department, and all you need to do is call us. Like they say in church: ‘We’ll come see about you.’”

When one participant told Frost she’d contacted APD after a recent neighborhood break-in and was not satisfied with the department’s response, Proctor immediately instructed one of his officers present to get more information.

“We need you; we need you to help us do this,” Proctor said. “I’ve grown to love this city, and I believe it has great potential. We don’t need to let the bad people give Albany a bad name.”

Frost distributed a “clean car checklist” that included such common-sense suggestions as placing valuables in vehicles’ trunks before arriving at a shopping destination, locking all windows and doors, removing all cellphones, removing GPS units and mounts, and leaving firearms at home.

“Sadly, a lot of us are making it too easy for the bad guys,” the deputy chief said.

Proctor told the gathering that groups are “car-hopping” in the city, going from vehicle to vehicle with one goal in mind: finding unlocked cars and taking valuables from inside.

“They’ll do 1,000 cars a night,” Proctor said. “The thing is, the cars that are locked, they don’t bother. You’ve worked too hard for your stuff, don’t let the criminals get it.

“We all know that folks come to Albany from Americus, Cordele, Dawson, Mitchell County, Panama City, Tifton … all over this region to shop here. But they come here to steal, too.”

Frost said APD officers have gone door-to-door in several neighborhoods in recent weeks, looking into vehicles.

“If we see a purse in a car or we see that the car is unlocked, we go and knock on the door,” he said. “A lot of people are confident that they won’t be targeted, but we have to get away from that kind of thinking.”

Fletcher told neighborhood watch members they could be a part of turning the city around.

“I promise you, we are at a turn,” she said. “We could take the wrong turn and go off a cliff, or we could take the right one and have our neighbors across the state ask us, ‘How did you guys turn it around?’ We all can be a part of that.”

Many in the community have asked what our elected officials and law enforcement agencies are doing about crime. Seems to me this meeting offers a pretty good answer to that question.

(The joint Sherwood Acres/Hilltop watch groups have planned meetings the last Monday of each month, except for the May meeting, which will be held May 19.)