Officials restart neighborhood watch effort

CLOVIS — With encouragement from Mayor Mike Morris to be “the extra eyes and ears” for law enforcement, Clovis city officials restarted an effort for neighborhood watch programs Monday night.

The town hall, which was covered virtually by The News, went about 20 minutes.

Morris began the town hall by noting Clovis wasn’t without its problems, its citizens support law enforcement and neighbors look out for each other. A neighborhood watch program, he said, aligns those traits.

Morris was confident many Clovis residents already look out for their area, “but neighborhood watch really takes it to another level, where there’s a systematic way of covering the neighborhood then contacting law enforcement if they see something wrong.”

Clovis Police Chief Doug Ford said neighborhood watch was about people simply becoming involved, and that criminals are less likely to go to neighborhoods where they see people engaged.

The city last tried to promote neighborhood watch in February 2020 and held a town hall at Kingswood United Methodist Church. That effort got sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We can’t do it alone; we have to have the help of everybody around,” Ford said. “The program is basically run by the neighbors within that neighborhood, however big they want the neighborhood to be.”

Ford and Deputy Chief Roy Rice said the department would help groups get the ball rolling on watch groups and be available for any questions, but couldn’t realistically attend every routine meeting of every group.

“You have to want to do this,” Rice said. “We can’t sit here and come up (to your meeting) every night or every week and tell you what to do. But we will be there to answer your questions.”

Ford encouraged simple measures like locking doors and windows, and possibly putting somebody in the house in charge of that duty every night before bedtime, to discourage potential criminals.

“The majority of our crimes are crimes of opportunity,” Ford said. “The majority of auto burglaries are people just going through neighborhoods and checking doors to cars.”

Other measures Ford encouraged included simply reviewing security footage and downloading it if it may be of any use to law enforcement.

Morris said the first step for citizens would be to form groups, then contact the CPD at 575-769-1921 to set up an introductory meeting. Ford said information is also available on the CPD’s Facebook page.

“We need volunteers from every neighborhood around town to spearhead this in their neighborhood,” Morris said.