NEIGHBORHOOD TO FORM WATCH PROGRAM

Residents of one South Cape Girardeau neighborhood gathered Friday night to learn how to organize a Neighborhood Watch.

And one of the organizers hopes the new group will inspire other residents of South Cape to do the same.

About 20 people met at the Second Baptist Church to hear Officers Charlie Herbst and Ike Hammonds talk about how residents can help fight crime in their own neighborhoods.

"Our crime-solving comes from citizens' information," Herbst said. "If you think something is wrong, call us. It's OK to call us and be wrong."

And neighbors have to work together for the program to work.

"Neighborhood Watch only works is you get to know your neighbors," Hammonds said, adding that it's important to know who does belong in the neighborhood in order to tell who doesn't belong there.

Pastor Wiley Reed, one of the organizers of Friday night's meeting, said neighborhood residents have been meeting for about a year to discuss concerns about rundown property, trash and crime in the area.

Reed's Neighborhood Watch group will work within the neighborhood around the church for now, he said.

"Our overall goal is to extend that so we'll be able to reach the whole community of the South Side," Reed said.

Herbst said police and other city staff have been working with South Side residents on a number of issues to help solve problems in the area.

He said residents have been especially helpful in reporting crime.

"We've had our loiterers and our card players and our drug dealers and all the other problems we've had in the last three or four years, and we've done some problem-solving," Herbst said. "Right now, we're in a pretty good period. There's money being spent here and there's houses being built."

There's still work to be done, said Reed, adding he'd like to see more support from the city and from organizations like Vision 2000.

But residents also have to take responsibility themselves to keep their neighborhoods safe, he said, by working together and by working with the rest of the community to solve problems.

"If we want to keep a balanced community, it's going to take all of our efforts," Reed said.

With residents meeting to solve problems, he said, "we've taken a positive step. I think what we need to do is encourage others to come and be a part of it."

It's also important for the whole city to realize that South Cape is "not disconnected from Cape Girardeau," Reed said.

"Our objective right now is to concentrate on our environment where we live and make it completely better," he said. "We just don't have crime problems. We have rundown houses. We have people in unfit living conditions. All of these things need to be tackled through the entire community of people."

The residents' group will meet again Jan. 9 at the church at 6 p.m.