As Fayetteville residents grapple with the discovery of four bodies in the past month and a litany of recent homicide investigations — with the latest killing occurring in a shooting on Saturday — Community Watch group leaders report ongoing struggles to get their neighbors to participate in meetings.
There are 170 community watch groups in Fayetteville, according to the Fayetteville Police Department’s database. Twenty-four of these groups meet as often as twice a month, and another 24 meet yearly; the other groups meet with varying frequency.
At a meeting of the city’s Community Police Advisory Board last week, committee members who lead or participate in Community Watch meetings in their neighborhoods expressed frustration over a lack of involvement and participation in those groups — which, by their nature, work most effectively because the synergy generated by the number of participants means better results.
Fayetteville’s Community Watch groups establish a partnership between local law enforcement and the community to reduce crime, with an emphasis on establishing crime prevention measures. They intend to provide residents with a concerted space to report suspicious activity in their neighborhoods, learn about crime trends in their area and increase communication among community members with regard to public safety.
Pablo Arroyo, a probation parole officer in Harnett County who lives in Fayetteville, said he can barely get neighbors to participate in the Community Watch group he leads — even when he provides incentives like offering free food at meetings.
“But the community does not want to be an active member to help in what's going on in the community itself, even by your house,” Arroyo said. “They don't want to get involved. They don't want to have that involvement. So for us right now, that's one of the priorities, to try to get our own community involved in our situations that are going on in our community.”
Board member William Grace, who serves as the coordinator of his neighborhood’s watch group, said apathy is the biggest issue his group faces as well. He said that extends beyond people not coming to meetings; neighbors, he added, display a general reluctance to call 911 or contact police even when they have direct knowledge of a crime.
That apathy can drive a perception, even among the police, Grace said, that crime isn’t really occurring in his community.
“Every time the police will come with the calls of service report and they say, ‘Oh, you hardly have any crime,’” Grace said. “And I try to make the point that, ‘Well, yes, we do have crime, it's just not being reported.’”
Board member Jacqueline Clay, a retired police officer who is also a member of her neighborhood’s Community Watch group, described similar difficulties with community engagement. She said, for example, that people tend not to heed warnings about leaving valuables in their cars, even after it has been identified as a trend by her group’s community crime prevention officer.
While she understands Community Watch groups are only one element in crime-fighting efforts, Clay said that lack of neighborly engagement is frustrating.
“You're just trying to put programs in place that will help reduce crime,” she said. “People don't seem to be concerned, and then people have information they don't give out, they don't talk. ‘Well, it's none of my business. I don't want to get involved.’ All we can do is continue to try to do what we can to help.”
Clay said another issue is getting young people and the parents of youth who have been involved in illegal activities to participate in meetings.
“The police put up fliers around the city in different places, (but) it's the same people,” Clay said. “You don't get what I call the millennials, the middle-aged people whose children, 16 and 17 years old, are out in the community committing these crimes.”
However, one board member, Jonathan Pratt, said he’s been successful in attracting young people to his Community Watch meetings or engaging with neighborhood crime-prevention efforts.
He’s driving meeting participation by deciding to “attach something to it” for participants, such as a job opportunity or a ride to an interview. Pratt said he was able to offer jobs to 47 people with past felonies, and “they always come by” meetings.
He also emphasized the importance of giving young people the tools they need to succeed, such as the ability to handle unfamiliar social situations.
“So you have to give them something, and then the violence will stop,” Pratt said. “It will slow down. It might not stop completely because they don't know how to handle social situations. If one was in here right now and you asked him a question, he would or she would move around. They just can't handle those situations. So we, in my community, have to give them those tools.”
The next Community Police Advisory Board meeting is at 6 p.m. Nov. 15 in the second-floor community room at the FAST Transit Center, 505 Franklin St.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
