Health & Fitness
Being Watched Over Can Be a Good Thing!
Team up with your neighbors and police to create safer neighborhoods.
Last week, fifteen of us gathered at the , 7447 Dale, 63117. Each of us was from a different "block" of : from Yale Ave in the East to Lindbergh Drive in the West, from Hoover Ave in the North to Hiawatha in the South, and points in-between.
We were all "block captains" and ranged in experience from newbies (this blogger) to a couple who started with the program 10 years ago. Police Officer David Rabbitt (who recently took over from P.O. Harrison) convened the meeting.
He began by inviting us to imbibe in refreshments and socialize for ten minutes. Then he launched into the police department website, www.rhpolice.org, and navigated through .
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New features include vacation forms which you can fill out on-line. By letting the police know the dates you will be gone, who has access to your house, and other information, the police will make visual checks of your home while you are gone and log this information.
There is also a new form to report "street light outages" which goes directly to Ameren Missouri.The site also has crime statistics, a calendar of events, and a citizen satisfaction survey. Because we have one of the larger malls in the metro area, some crime statistics like burglaries are inflated.
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P.O. Rabbitt detailed other crime fighting tactics like "", "Youth Sports Night", "School LiaisonProgram", "Bicycle Patrol", and, of course, "Neighborhood Watch" which we were participating in.
If you wish to start a Neighborhood Watch on your block, contact P.O. Rabbitt. He will print up fliers for you and he will show up at your meeting. He will also bring a "tool kit" of resources for crime fighting.
P.O. Rabbitt verified that "" will be . He promised to continue the "one call system" whereby citizens make one call to him and he gets back to them.
The meeting ended with a Question and Answer Period, much of which centered on the crime statistics in Richmond Heights. P.O. Rabbitt ended with a warning that "there is a fine line between keeping block captains informed and fear mongering." He encouraged all of us to stay in contact with each other as watchful eyes of neighbors are the best crime stoppers.