“I want our road back” — Neighborhood Watch is back

Jim Riemann had a pop quiz for his neighbors.

“There was a vehicle parked in my second driveway — how many of you noticed it?” he asked.

In the group of about 45 neighbors on East Hoquiam Road packed into the gun club building last Wednesday, four or five uncertain hands went up.

But Val Brock is already learning the ropes of the fledgling Neighborhood Block Watch.

“I stopped and took a picture,” she said. “It’s not a known vehicle on the road.”

That’s the goal for the East Hoquiam Road group, founder Linda Webb said. Getting to know the neighbors again, noticing when something’s not right and most importantly, reporting it.

“That’s what we do, we’re eyes and ears for law enforcement. We’re not a vigilante group, we’re not out there carrying weapons,” Webb said.

It’s just one of several watch groups organizing in Grays Harbor County, from Copalis Beach to Oakville, Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office Chief Criminal Deputy Steve Shumate said. “I just think it’s extremely coincidental, it’s not like we’ve been advertising to do this,” he said.

The extra eyes and ears are especially useful for the Sheriff’s Office right now as it trains six new deputies. While they work through about a year of training, the office is short-handed.

“Bless their hearts for what they do for us, I don’t think we can thank them enough, but they are so few in number,” Webb said. “Eyes and ears, it doesn’t cost us anything. What it does is give us quality of life back.”

Once a sergeant position is filled, that officer will likely take over direct work with the groups, but for now, Shumate is handling it himself.

“It’s just too important for us to wait,” he said.

Her watch begins

Webb knows first-hand the impacts of crime on her rural road. She had tried to contact the Sheriff’s Office early last year about starting a watch program but found there wasn’t a budget for it yet.

“I just kind of let it go at that point,” she recalled.

A few months later, she found herself a victim of one of seven reported burglaries on East Hoquiam Road last year.

Thieves made off with five generations’ worth of items stored in her second home, which was being remodeled.

“I had thousands of dollars worth of things in boxes, and by labeling the boxes, I gave them a road map. The ones with sheets and towels they didn’t bother,” she said.

This year, she’s spearheaded the watch program with energy and efficiency. She’s knocked on doors, gotten to know neighbors she’s never met and learned about crimes no one ever reported.

In six houses she stopped at one day, she said, “five of those houses out of the six had had something happen, and only one of those houses had reported it.”

Even that house only reported one of several crimes.

One of the biggest challenges can be changing the surprisingly ingrained mindset that there’s no point in reporting the small crimes that can plague a neighborhood.

“ ‘Well what good is it going to do?’ It’s kind of that mindset that folks often have,” Shumate said. “It’s pressing on them what they can do. … We want people to know we’re not going to tolerate crime, any type of crime, in our community.”

Dave Miller, another organizer for the group, has been the victim of multiple thefts since he settled on the road in 1989.

“Did I report it? No,” Miller said. “And in talking to my neighbors, I found a lot of people who just shrugged that stuff off and didn’t do anything about it. I figured since I’m newly retired, I volunteered to be (Webb’s) No. 2 guy.”

The reporting element is the most important part of an effective watch.

“If we don’t know there’s a problem occurring out here, we can’t help you,” Shumate said. “And that’s what the Sheriff’s Office is trying to do, make life better.”

Communication

The group has only been active a few months, and people are still learning what to look for and how to be a good witness for law enforcement.

“Now we’ve got to teach those eyes what they’re looking for, how to report it, what constitutes suspicious activities,” Miller said.

They’ve started by creating worksheets for members, trying to cover simple things like height, build, distinctive marks or tattoos and which way they may have been heading.

“We’re trying to get out to our members to look around, be aware of things that are not normal, be aware of the stranger walking down the street, knocking on a neighbor’s door, the strange vehicle driving down the street,” Miller said.

“They really are doing tremendous work,” Shumate said. “It’s just so impressive what the East Hoquiam group has done.”

The communication goes both ways. Each morning, Shumate sends each group he’s in contact with an area-specific report on calls or activity received for the previous 24 hours. Many times, small items like suspicious vehicles won’t garner media attention, but vigilant neighbors can use that information to make a difference.

Recently, Shumate sent out information on a vehicle that was suspected in a burglary. A member of the Copalis Beach group spotted the car, called it in and a deputy was able to find and stop it.

“From that traffic stop, we were able to get information that she was involved in these burglaries, and we ended up getting information for people up in Humptulips and solved these burglaries,” Shumate said. “We would not have gotten that information if we had not put that information out to our folks up in Copalis Beach.”

Getting started

Webb’s advice to those thinking about starting their own neighborhood watch program is to simply do it. Don’t be put off by perceived complexity.

“To get going takes an effort, but it pretty much becomes self-sufficient,” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be this complex monster,” Shumate said, “it can be as simple as, ‘I want to be the contact person, the conduit for my community.’ And we can start like that.”

The focus today is sending the message that crime won’t be tolerated or ignored and learning how to avoid becoming a victim, but Webb hopes it will grow to so much more than that.

Once the connections between neighbors are re-established and strengthened, she hopes they can use that to know who needs help in a disaster, quickly share local cougar sightings, find lost dogs or organize gatherings such as the National Night Out.

“I want our road back,” Webb said. “I want those of us who live out here to have the quality life we’ve enjoyed, (so) we’re not coming home wondering what’s happened. And how better to do that than to get people reacquainted with one another?”

Shumate can be reached at the Sheriff’s Office at 360-249-3711.

Brionna Friedrich: 360-537-3933 or bfriedrich@thedailyworld.com and @DW_Brionna on Twitter.