There’s not enough police in Seattle to keep a constant eye on your section of the neighborhood, much less on your specific block. But odds are that at any one time, there’s a good proportion of your neighbors who are home and can help keep watch for shenanigans. 

But the key to making community crime prevention effective is good organization. You need to really get to know your neighbors before you can accurately say whether the man coming and going from their backyard should be there or not. A well organized block watch creates those kind of communication channels and creates a tighter knit community around you.

The Leschi neighborhood is trying to get to that next step of coordination, and Jane Cunningham and Tracy Bier are taking the initial stab at getting everyone together to make it happen. So if you’d like to have more eyes on your street, and build a stronger community in the process, then make plans to attend the All Block Watch Meeting this Thursday at 7pm.

SPD Crime Prevention Coordinator Mark Solomon will also be on hand to help out and give people some practical tools to ease the process. Contact Jane at [email protected] if you’d like to know more.