NEIGHBORS HIT STREETS TO HALT CRIME
PARTICIPATION IN NATIONAL NIGHT OUT TRIPLED IN PHOENIX, ORGANIZERS SAY
Byline: By Ryan Konig , THE PHOENIX GAZETTE
Joe Huggins stood in a barricaded street waiting for the neighborhood to revert to the
days when neighbors knew each other.
Huggins and dozens more from the Granada Neighborhood poured into 31st Avenue Tuesday to celebrate the annual National Night Out Against Crime.
Granada was among a record number of Phoenix neighborhoods that threw block parties as a way for neighbors to meet one another and to promote Block Watch and other anti-crime programs.
For this, Huggins, 69, wanted to do something different.
''I thought I would ride my unicycle,'' he said. ''I haven't been on it for three years.''
Cynthia Schwartz, who chaired Phoenix's Night Out committee, said three times as many neighborhoods participated this year than last year.
More than 240 neighborhoods informed the Police Department and the Block Watch Advisory Board that they planned events for the Night Out celebration.
Mayor Paul Johnson, Police Chief Dennis Garrett and Sheriff Joe Arpaio spent the evening traveling in a motor home from neighborhood to neighborhood to meet people celebrating the event.
At the Duppa Villa Projects near 19th and Van Buren streets, hundreds of people gathered in a park lit by several spotlights for food, face painting, pony rides, music and conversation.
At University Park, near Ninth Avenue and Van Buren Street, Lucy Mattox and dozens of others celebrated improvements to their neighborhood, including recent police crackdowns on drug dealers.
At the Coffelt Housing Projects, near 19th Avenue and Buckeye Road, dozens of families gathered in a baseball field. Merdell Smith, 11, broke away from the gathering when the Police Department motor home pulled up.
He had heard that the mayor was inside.
''Are you the mayor?,'' he asked one of the people getting out. ''How about you?''
He succeeded on his third try.
''I've been here all day and I wanted to make sure I met the mayor before I left,'' Merdell said.
Richard Fox, president of the Phoenix Block Watch Advisory Board, said he is hoping that Night Out will encourage neighborhoods to form Block Watches.
He said Block Watch helps build partnerships between residents and their neighborhood and between neighborhoods and business and government.
Phoenix has about 2,000 Block Watches, said Lora Lee Nye, chairwoman of the Phoenix Block Watch Commission.
''I would be surprised if there were not a thousand more Block Watches created this year,'' Nye said.
Color photo by David McIntyre / THE PHOENIX GAZETTE
Police Chief Dennis Garrett hands out ''glow sticks'' to Katelyn Dehlin, 4, and her brother, Miles, 3, during a visit to the Royal Palms area Tuesday as part of the National Night Out Against Crime. Hundreds of Valley neighborhoods participated in the annual campaign, aimed at getting neighbors acquainted with one another and organizing Block Watches.