LONGVIEW, Texas — Millions of people throughout America participate each year in National Night Out (NNO). Residents in Longview are no exception.
In an effort to increase relationships between law enforcement and the community, as well as provide education on crime prevention, the city hosted their 29th annual NNO Kick-Off event. Officials say much of that success is owed to the community and neighbors looking out for neighbors.
Violent Crimes dropped more than 21% from 2016 to 2017 and more than 4% the following year.
With events like NNO Kick-Off events, people can learn how to keep those numbers low and protect one another.
"It's important for you to help your neighbors. Look out for your neighbors," Jean Miller, a Longview resident and watch party host, said.
Millwe attended the kick-off event to learn how to keep her neighborhood safe.
"Try to keep the neighborhood clean and try to keep everything enforced like it's supposed to be," Miller said. "Things happened before now and you know we didn't have it and we weren't a member of the watch party but now since we learned more about it and we try to do better."
According to the Longview Police Department, in 2016, there were 10 murders and by 2018 there were seven.
There were also 843 burglaries in 2016 and that number dropped to 518 last year.
There was a total of 4,306 violent crimes reported in 2016. In 2018, 2,945 incidents occurred.
“The more involvement we can get with neighbors looking out for one another, within working with law enforcement, local law enforcement, the closer we're going to become a close knit community,” Josh Tubbs, of the Gregg County Sheriff's Office, said.
Tubbs says the more people look out for each other, the less crimes there can be.
“When the community is working with law enforcement, when the law enforcement is working with the community, we have an open line of communication, the crime rates going to go down," Tubbs explained.
Officials say there were more than 120 watch parties through Longview and Gregg County. Longview also placed 12th last year in the nation for an outstanding participation in population size.
“We need to come together and as one community and look out for one another and local law enforcement that way we make our streets safer for our kids coming up and for our neighbors next door, “ Tubbs said.
The Official National Night Out in Longview is October 1. That is when several members of the community will host individual watch night parties along with law enforcement.