Communities to attend block parties for crime prevention

By: Teri Ruland

Posted: 10/6/08

University Police Department (UPD), College Station Police Department, Bryan Police Department and the Brazos County Sheriff's Office attended a proclamation signing at the Bryan Administration Center which declared Tuesday as National Night Out.

"National Night Out is about joining law enforcement and the community in order to fight crime," said University Crime Prevention Officer Kristi Hosea.

Safety-oriented agencies will be available for students to interact with in a non-crisis situation in order to get to know one another and promote crime prevention with the students. These safety-oriented agencies will be providing helpful crime safety tips to students.

Tables that will be available for students to visit are the game warden with the Operation Game Thief Trailer, the rail road with Operation Life Saver, UPD, the Environmental Health and Safety Department, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Alcohol and Drug Education Program, Vince and Larry the crash dummies and the Yell Leaders.

Refreshments will be available including hot dogs, chips, cakes and drinks. Shivers will be present and the first 250 snow cones will be free. Every snow cone after that will be $1. "There will be a rock wall to climb available from 6 to 8 p.m., outdoor swimming, door prizes including a $50 gift card to the MSC bookstore, senior pull privileges for the Colorado game, meaning one person wins and they can pull up to 10 tickets with their friends' IDs," said Hosea.

While the event is intended for on-campus students, anyone is welcome to come.

"Off-campus students should try to attend their neighborhood block parties," Hosea said. "It helps students off campus get to know their neighbors and makes it more difficult for crimes to occur because they're looking out for each other."

The College Station Police Department will be going around to each neighborhood block party off campus to get to know the community.

Approximately 25 officers will be going to visit parties, CSPD's Senior Officer and Crime Prevention Officer Rachel Fallwell said.

"There will be bags of giveaways including information about home security surveys, Operation ID, Citizens Police Academy, vehicle burglary prevention information, safely celebrating in College Station, when to call 9-1-1, plus information about any other problem or concern for that particular party and other giveaways from Target of College Station," Fallwell said.

Officers will be assigned different parties based on patrol duties because it helps UPD achieve its mission: to reduce crime and the fear of crime, improve the quality of life and build partnerships for problem-solving with the community, Fallwell said.

Several city departments will be attending parties.

"[Members of] city government, the mayor, the city manager and assistant city manager, Target team, and some staff that aren't police officers including dispatchers, evidence technicians, public safety officers and all chiefs will be out, including the chief of police," Fallwell said.

"They will be addressing concerns and answering questions," she said.

Deputy Ed Frank of the Brazos County Sheriff's Office said the department works in communities outside of Bryan-College Station.

"Since we have such a large area to cover, we can't have block parties, but we do have community setups from Millican, the southernmost community, to Edge, which is our northernmost community," said Frank.

Four deputies will be going from community party to community party, doing the same thing the city does in their areas," Frank said.

"If there are any students living in the outlying areas, they can still call Monday if they want to participate," he said. "They can call the sheriff's office."

National Night Out
Times of events for National Night Out Tuesday at A&M:
5 to 8 p.m. National Night Out at Student Recreation Center
6 to 8 p.m. Rockwall climbing
5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Food served

Contacts
If students in College Station want to have a block party and haven't registered, they can e-mail Fallwell at rfallwell@cstx.gov or call at (979) 764-3579. The sheriff's office phone number is (979) 361-4906.

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To determine whether you are registered to vote, follow the instructions at the state's voter information site.
https://voterinfo.sos.state.tx.us

How to register to vote:
Fill out the online registration form [PDF], print it and mail it to the Brazos County Voter Registrar.
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