Neighbors Get Schooled on Preventing Crimes of Opportunity

It's as simple as leaving your purse in a shopping cart, you turn away for just a few seconds, but that is all that it takes for a crime to occur: your purse is gone in an instant. This crime of opportunity is preventable and on Tuesday, 40 Second District residents learned how to be a part of the solution. 

Samantha Nolan, a community organizer, has trained over 1,000 block captains, including the 40 or so who turned out Tuesday.

Nolan began hosting trainings just in her community, but has since been tasked by the Chief of Police with doing Neighborhood Watch trainings in every ward.

Nolan trains with a PowerPoint presentation that shows photos of real crime scenes. She helps trainees dissect exactly how the crime happened. She said after seeing the photos, there's usually a "duh" moment where people understand why someone would target one car or home over another.

Nolan pointed out that in Thursday's Watch Commander Report on the Second District MPD listserv, there was an unfortunate recent incident that highlights these very crimes of opportunity.

The report reads:

"The victim reported that an unknown suspect entered their apartment in an unknown manner, during the denoted time period and stole a laptop computer, jewelry and I.D. documents. The door to the apartment was unlocked as well as a fire escape window."

To keep people alert and help prevent these crimes, the Neighborhood Watch system relies on volunteers.

Each neighborhood, whether it is Georgetown, Burleith, Foxhall etc. has a director for the area. Then there are the individual block captains who report to the director and act as the eyes of their stretch of the city. The block captains start their own email chains and send information from the MPD listserv or other alerts.

Georgetown's Neighborhood Watch group met Wednesday night. Tomorrow Patch will have a report on the Georgetown group's efforts.

If you are interested in becoming a Block Captain, contact Samantha Nolan (nolantutor@yahoo.com) and she will put you in touch with others in your neighborhood.