Several residents of Southern Village have been victims of crimes and vandalism recently. Several garages have been broken into recently and had items such as golf clubs, wine, beer, etc stolen. There have been other incidents where several cars have had all or several car windows smashed. A group of concerned Southern Village residents are organizing so that Southern Village can become a Community Watch Neighborhood.
- The general purpose of the program is based on the concept of people looking out for one another. At the same time it lets potential criminals know that someone is watching out for them.
- This is the foundation for crime prevention. The opportunity, desire and ability to commit particular crimes are reduced at a specific location and time. This creates an atmosphere that is conducive to deterring overall crime.
- This program takes teamwork and effort on everyone’s part, including law enforcement.
We need participation from everyone in order to make this program most effective. We can all participate by reporting any crimes or suspicious behavior that we see. The way you do that is by calling 911. Many locations use 911 for extreme emergencies only but Chapel Hill uses 911 for reporting all activity or events that should be investigated by the police department. So if you see activity that you believe is suspicious you should call 911 and let the police determine what the situation is. Be prepared to give them as much information (descriptions, license tag #s, etc) as possible.
In order to be a Community Watch Neighborhood we need street captains throughout the neighborhood. When the police are aware of a situation where they feel the neighborhood should be aware, they email to an individual in Southern Village (Erin Furr) who will be responsible for emailing to the street captains and they in turn will forward the email to the families on their email list. This will allow us to be aware of activities (fact vs. rumors) and better protect our families and property. We are looking for volunteers for street captains. If you are interested in volunteering for this position, please email Erin at ehfurr@bellsouth.net. Let her know your name, address, phone number, email address and which street you would like to sign up for.
Another good way to keep current on what is going on in the neighborhood is to go to www.southernvillage.org and register for email alerts.