Thursday, February 19, 2009

information from a neighbor

Lewisville Citizens Organize Crime Watch Board
The Editor's Column
Posted by WhosPlayin on 2009/2/13 16:10:00 (75 reads)
This past December, a group of Lewisville residents representing several Neighborhood Crime Watch organizations got together with representatives from the Lewisville Police Department and decided to form an independent organization to link crime watch groups together.

This new organization, the Lewisville Crime Watch Board (L.C.W.B.), has the support of city and police staff, and holds meetings at the Lewisville Police Department.

The general public is being invited to a joint crime watch meeting on March 2, 2009, 7pm at the police department. L.C.W.B. volunteers will present a kid-friendly presentation along with a Q & A session about forming your own neighborhood crime watch.

The LCWB is dedicated to helping law enforcement make Lewisville a safer and more enjoyable place to live. Where once there were scattered Neighborhood Crime Watches of limited activity and participation, there are now coordinated efforts by both the larger and the smaller Crime Watch groups to form a city-wide net that discourages criminals from bringing their activities and crime to Lewisville.


Allie Van Wagoner, coordinator of the Lewisville Valley 3 Neighborhood Crime Watch helped start the group, along with other crime watch participants she met while attending Lewisville's Citizen's Police Academy this past fall. Several coordinators of neighborhood watch groups discovered that their organizations were having similar problems with code enforcement, crime, and city resources.

Van Wagoner said she was motivated to start her crime watch because of a neighbor who she says is operating a sexually oriented business from his home, and has attempted to abduct her child over the fence between their houses.

A big issue that neighborhood watches end up dealing with is code enforcement. Van Wagoner says that her neighborhood has had problems with residents not cutting lawns or keeping up with property, littering, newspapers piling up and violations of noise ordinances "by mostly teenagers" booming their car stereos.

Crime rates rose slightly in Lewisville in 2008, but overall, the city is still rated the 8th safest city in Texas.

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