In regard to crime, we don’t have all the answers and we’re not investigators, but we do have some ideas.
Unscramble the police scanner. Information is power. Media and citizens need access to what’s happening. (We understand it would need to be on a time delay.)
Tracking owner, property manager, and legal tenants against crimes based on location after noticing some property owners and managers have significantly more drug traffic than others.
A social media monitor. After we notified the police when we saw posts threatening to kill them (being made on social media) we thought the department should monitor social media accounts as gang members and other known criminals brag about their illicit behaviors.
Designate a parking space by the police station monitored by cameras so that people who want to buy/sell/trade can do so safely. Many cities across the country do this. (And no one wants another Michael Jones situation—the Columbus man murdered in May of 2020 in Alabama who used a social media site to purchase a used iPhone.) Update: Good news! The Lowndes Co. Sheriff’s Department set up an Internet purchase location July 29, 2021 in Jones’s honor. People may also go to the Sheriff office’s lobby inside to trade safely. We’d still like the city to set up one too.
Don’t waste money on cameras if no one is going to monitor and make sure they work. 5/18 the council voted to get 12 cameras at a cost of $37,960
Have the city enroll in The Officer Next Door federal program. Or, start a local officer next door program. The program enables affordable home- ownership opportunities in neighborhoods designated as “revitalization areas” to full-time law enforcement officers, teachers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) via a 50 percent discount off the purchase price of the property.
Enforce Motor Vehicle Laws. (Having a license plate.) Too many times citizens—or even police—see a suspicious vehicle and want to make a note of the vehicle’s tag only to discover it does not have one. Knowing a tag number helps police and citizens.
Return National Night Out (NNO) to it’s roots—a community-driven, bottoms up event. In many cities it is the neighborhood associations who fund, host, and promote. Neighborhoods host the police and encourage commuity policing. In Columbus, NNO has become a city-led event where the city leads the efforts of promoting and funding.
NNO is designed to raise awareness about crime by generating participation in anti-crime programs, while increasing community spirit and strengthening relationships with police. https://natw.org/about/