HILO — Wanted: People committed to making their neighborhoods and communities safer and better places to live.
Hawaii Police Department’s Community Policing Division and Hawaii Island’s Neighborhood Watch organization are seeking volunteers.
“Our basic premise is helping the Hawaii Police Department address the crime issue, 24/7,” Bobbye St. Ambrogio, the island’s Neighborhood Watch coordinator, recently told the Tribune-Herald.
St. Ambrogio knows about addressing crime. She’s a retired chief from the sheriff’s department in Bergen County, New Jersey — the most populous county in the U.S., directly across the Hudson River from New York City.
“I was very much involved in community policing at the time,” St. Ambrogio said. “It’s my job to be the liaison between the Neighborhood Watches and Community Policing. Hopefully, each Neighborhood Watch is assigned a community policing officer who helps project the image of what police is all about and how, if assistance is needed, the group should call the police department. We have over 200 registered Neighborhood Watch groups on this island — and I really try to get to see everybody.”
Police Lt. William Derr, Hilo Community Policing Section commander, described Neighborhood Watch as “community members getting together and looking out for each other, taking responsibility for their neighborhoods and doing what they can to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood.”
Neighborhood Watch is “not limited to crime prevention,” Derr added. One of the things that came up recently in a neighborhood watch was an elderly person living on their own in that neighborhood, he said.
“And the neighbors would take turns going to visit with that individual to make sure they’re doing good, bring lunch or bring dinner to that person,” he said. “So it’s about crime prevention, but it’s much more than that. It’s really about an extension of the neighbors helping neighbors concept.”
St. Ambrogio said part of a successful Neighborhood Watch group is identifying the strengths of its community so it can use those assets in a time of crisis.
“Who’s a practicing doctor? Who’s a retired nurse? Who has a construction business that has heavy-duty machinery? Who can run a chainsaw? Who can cook? Who would be willing to set up a meeting area where everybody can come to their home?” St. Ambrogio said. “That’s also part of the message that Civil Defense is putting out there about being prepared.”
A recent success story involves Leilani Estates, it’s community association and neighborhood watch, in getting squatters out of homes that had been either abandoned, foreclosed on or both in the wake of last year’s eruption of Kilauea volcano that hit the lower Puna subdivision particularly hard.
Police Lt. Kenneth Quiocho, who was Puna Patrol Division commander at the time and now occupies the same position in Hilo, praised the Leilani Community Association and Neighborhood Watch for “taking a proactive approach to what was going on in the neighborhood.”
Although police here often work with only eight officers per shift to patrol areas larger than Oahu, ordinary citizens now have more tools than ever at their disposal to help police prevent crime and apprehend suspects once crime does occur.
“We’re in an age of technology,” Derr said. “It really helps the neighborhood watches, because they can email. They can call each other. They can text each other. They can take pictures of a suspicious car.
“They can, and do use technology to their benefit.”
For more information, call St. Ambrogio at 964-2266, Derr at 961-2350, or visit the Hawaii Police Department’s website at https://www.hawaiipolice.com/community/neighborhood-watch.