COUNTY'S NEIGHBORHOOD WATCHES A FIRST LINE AGAINST CRIME

Bruce Schoen worked to get his whole community of Oak Ridge prepared for Y2K. The fact that nothing happened Jan. 1 doesn't bother him a bit.

"We tried to find out who has generators if the power went out, who owns backhoes if we have to dig something out," said Schoen, who initiated Cape Girardeau County's first Neighborhood Watch program in more than a generation.

Schoen's concern for community safety prompted him to start the watch in 1997. He got the idea when he was driving home from a camping trip at Clearwater Lake and saw a Neighborhood Watch sign posted along a county road.

"I thought, we could do that, too," he said.

Over the past three years Schoen has found others in Oak Ridge and Fruitland and East County fire districts who agree with him. East County organized its own watch program in April 1998, while Fruitland started last June.

Although neighborhood watches haven't been formed in Millersville, Gordonville, Delta and Whitewater fire districts, the majority of rural Cape Girardeau County is covered, said Rob Watson, a sheriff's deputy who works with the watch groups.

Oak Ridge has seldom seen serious crime. But teen-age mischief, especially rolling burning hay bales onto roads, had been a dangerous nuisance to property owners like himself, Schoen said.

The Cape Girardeau Sheriff's Department felt the same way, Watson said.

"We used to get calls up there about two or three times a night," he said. "Now we're lucky if it's two or three times a week."

Neighborhood watches have given sheriff's deputies extra eyes and ears, which is one way of improving the department's manpower, Watson said.

The neighborhood watches have meetings monthly, but their day-to-day operations are based on a "phone tree" system, said Kim Kelley, watch coordinator for East County. Fire districts are divided into zones. People within the zones are contacted by the coordinator when the sheriff's office learns of problems in a certain area. Information then branches out on the "tree" as watch members call each other.

Watson works as a liaison between the sheriff's office and watch members. Dispatchers will inform him first if suspicious activity is occurring in a watch area, and then he'll contact commanders in different zones.

He stays open for business 24 hours a day.

"If I get called and woken up, people have to understand I'll call them and wake them up, too," Watson said.

He encourages residents in watch groups to be suspicious and call, since not enough people actually report what they see.

Watson recalled an incident last fall when a vandal had repeatedly driven up and down a gravel road knocking down mailbox posts and tearing up fences. About a half dozen people living along the road had seen the truck, he later learned, but only one watch member called the sheriff's office with a vehicle description.

That call led Watson and Sheriff John Jordan to the vandal's residence.

Stickers from the fences the vandal had knocked down were stuck to his truck, and a "no trespassing" sign he had taken was lying on the back seat, Watson said.

Attendance at Neighborhood Watch meetings, like reports of odd activity, could also be better.

"It hasn't got off the ground like it should," said Margie Reisenbichler, a member of Fruitland's watch. "Everybody wanted the black and white signs, but they don't come to meetings."

The sheriff's office provides groups with Neighborhood Watch signs and stickers to put up on their property as well as invisible ink markers. The markers can be used to identify personal property. If property is stolen, law enforcement then has the ability to learn who owns it if it's recovered, Watson said.

At the meetings, coordinators try to present speakers or topics that educate. Past themes have included identifying methamphetamine labs, emergency preparedness and drug-sniffing dogs.

More than 150 people came to see bloodhounds from the sheriff's office at Fruitland last summer, Watson said. "People always come out to see the dogs," he said.

Last fall East County's watch group staged a mock earthquake complete with victims.

"In any mass disaster you have to survive on your own for the first 72 hours," said Dwayne Kirchhoff, a firefighter with the East County Fire District who participates in the watch. "But if you live out in the county it might be a week."

Some of the 50 who participated in the drill, staged near Nell Holcomb School, got to practice emergency medicine. Art Bender liked the idea of using an umbrella for a splint. "Sometimes you have to revert back to the old ways," he said.

East County is considering a mock tornado drill for the spring, Kelley said.

Schoen's goal for his group is to have residents prepared to handle emergencies in Y2K or any other year.

"We're not going to be prepared for everything, but a little bit of planning helps a lot," he said.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH

Upcoming neighborhood watch meetings in Cape Girardeau County fire districts:

Oak Ridge - A nurse will discuss emergency medicine at 7 p.m. today at the Oak Ridge Baptist Church.

Fruitland - Dr. Robert Briner of the SEMO Crime Lab will discuss methamphetamine labs at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13 at Zion Lutheran Church in Pocahontas.

East County - Dr. Robert Briner of the SEMO Crime Lab will discuss methamphetamine labs at 7 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Nell Holcomb School gym.