Neighborhood Watch 2.0

I work for a social enterprise start up in Atlanta called Village Defense. I know that solicitations are not allowed through this site but I was wondering if I might be able to get people's opinion on a system such as ours. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION

Through our company we have a call system that is witness triggered to where if a neighbor sees a crime occurring they would call the police as well as calling our number and describing what is going on. This in turn would be blasted out via text message and phone call to everyone else alerting them of what is going on. Our objective is to first reduce crime in communities but we have seen a reduction in the amount of interaction between neighbors so we believe through our system that we actually have seen neighborhoods come together. I realize that there might be other systems like ours, but I truly want to get neighbor's thoughts and opinions.

Morgan

All well and said until some person in the call ladder decides to take matters in their own hands.

If I hear a person screaming for help outside my window, what am I to do? Call you? Yet should I go out there with a gun and try to help? Or ignore it all?

Damned if I do, damned if I do not.

Be careful.

I am not too hip to the idea of simultaneous calling to the police and your company. The LAW should be the FIRST and FOREMOST notified to deal with a situation. If they are working with the neighborhood watch they would communicate their results after an investigation. If that does NOT happen then the homeowner may want to call and spread the word. I think there is some privacy issues involved here to be concious of besides of just the law.

I formed a Neighborhood Watch when I was President. It was COMPLETELY separated from the HOA and NO funds mixed in. Just the same people who live in the neighborhood. I had to deal with a flasher at the pool once. The guy was a married man with kids. He flashed a woman at the pool and said an offense comment. I was there but did NOT see the incident. However, there ws no doubt it was true as this man had a history of walking around naked in front of his windows. He'd even tried to hit on me a few times. A real creep! Was he breaking the law? No except for the flashing with no witnesses. So what I did was pass the word to the "pool regulars" to NEVER leave women alone idf he was at the pool. I also talked to a few women and warned them "Unofficially". To say too much would have been "Gossip" or spreading unsubstantiated rumors that could be slanderous. Sometimes just keeping it on the "downlow" is the way to go.

One incident involved me that was a complete lie. Someone stole a gun from a woman who was dating a guy I had been involved with. A BIG reason why I moved to get away from. He told the police it was me because I was upset because they were dating?! He then told the neighbors I had done this because I was obsessed with him. I was still neighborhood watch contact and knew the truth. It was a teenage son of a board member across the street. He got caught trying to break into the guy's truck and took a baseball bat to my neighbor who stopped him. Now how do you think I felt to find out someone had gone around telling people I was a "Stalking crazy psycho" who steals guns? clearly NOTHING farther from the truth. Even the police knew better. It put my reputation in question.

So it's not a good idea for a phone tree situation until AFTER the results are in. Otherwise the whole story isn't and can hurt people. I was lucky enough that most people knew this guy was a liar. However, one false police report can really throw everything a mess...