By Allan Jamail
October 1, 2024 ~ Jacinto City, TX ~ Citizens and Jacinto City police partnered together for crime prevention’s National Night Out. NNO is a nationwide program designed to help communities reduce crime in their neighborhoods. The original concept is to have block-parties throughout the city.
The NNO goal is for families to come out to get to learn about each other in their own immediate area by having block-parties. It defeats this goal when city’s have only one big event because participants are coming to it and are co-mingling with others they don’t live near and aren’t learning about their own neighbors.
When you have block-parties in separate neighborhoods; neighbors meet each other and learn from discussions how they can help guard and protect each other’s homes. It’s called, NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH.
The City of Jacinto City in times past assisted citizens in organizing and developing block-parties so neighbors could join together to develop better relationships between each other. By doing so it provided neighbors the ability should they see something suspicious at their neighbor’s home to call the police.
In my neighborhood, my wife and I are considered the Block Captains; we’ve made it a point to learn each of our neighbor’s vehicles as well as their daily habits. I have used their contact information to call them when they’re away from home to inquire about a strange vehicle at their home. More than once they’ve asked me to report the suspicious vehicle to the police. This is how you reduce crimes; this is “Neighborhood Watch In Action” as it was designed when it began 41 years ago. NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH!
As Jacinto City’s last City Marshal, I can remember starting the “Say Nope To Dope” program where we regularly had the city’s youth and parents come to meetings to see illegal drug paraphernalia and different forms of chemical drugs so parents would be able to recognize those harmful narcotics. Parents and kids wore our pin-on-buttons and put bumper stickers on their vehicles with our logo, Say Nope To Dope.
To fight crime, I started a JC Junior Police program, and we had over 50 kids join in. We took them to outings like an Astros game. These youngsters knew the police officers names and the officers knew the Junior Police members names. Our Junior Police was much involved in our Neighborhood Watch Program fighting crime. They helped the police eliminate crimes in their own neighborhood and helped us reduce illegal drugs in the city.
Each Junior Police had their own uniform of a white shirt and navy blue pants and each had a silver metal name badge with their own individual number on it and a Junior Police identification card. Local churches provided their church busses for us to take the Junior Police to places of interest. They loved wearing their uniforms and were proud to wear them when we took them places. They were active in the city and even helped raise money for muscular dystrophy and other charitable causes.
As police chief, I allowed teenage Junior Police to sit inside the police dispatch office to assist in filing papers etc. One Junior Police was Tammy Matheny; she learned how to dispatch and later became a Senior Communications Supervisor in a police department. She is retired now. Other Junior Police went into law enforcement and still thank me for introducing them to their career.
I commend Mayor Ana Diaz and the city council for holding a large NNO event whereby lots of people attended. Unfortunately I’ve learned that some who attended didn’t live in the city and very few who did never learned anything about their own immediate neighbors.
The Second Baptist Church held their annual NNO event and they had a good turnout.
In times past, my wife Linda and I won first place for the best neighborhood block-party. We still have the certificate Mayor Mike Jackson presented to us at a council meeting. It is my hope the mayor and council will once again begin adding NNO block-parties throughout the city as they’ve done before; it will prove to reduce neighborhood crimes.
This year my wife Linda and I were able to recruit and host two NNO events in neighborhoods, where several hundred from each of the immediate areas came out to meet their own neighbors. If you’re interested in learning how to plan a block-party or sponsoring a NNO next year, call Allan Jamail, 281-782-0401.