MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — The Middletown Division of Police hosted on Tuesday its 23rd annual National Night Out, a community event to bridge the gap between law enforcement and residents.
Despite the bounce houses, live animals and music, National Night Out is not just about the fun. Local officials said the event is crucial in solving and preventing crime in their area.
And it all starts with community connection.
“Here not only with crime prevention…we also have assistance out here for people who may suffer from any addictions and alcohol problems. We have people from religions, we also have entities to help out children. This is phenomenal,” said Andy Warrick, Deputy Chief in charge of operations with Middletown Division of Police.
In late May, the city had a town hall to find solutions to curb violence within the community. One of the common themes throughout the meeting was creating community connections.
I asked Deputy Chief Warrick if National Night Out and similar events were the solution to reducing violence in the community.
“This is,” Warrick said. “Usually we get to build community relationships by doing this. And one of the aspects, when we had that meeting, was we had ideas of who the shooters were, but we needed the community to step up and help us out. They have done that, they came to talk to us, which has helped us curb that problem.”
And that curb is showing in the stats.
“Even when I put in some of the numbers from the crime stats from last year to this year, they’re way down. There are some isolated incidents, but they were very high profile,” Warrick said. “We had to get on them real quick. The detectives and the patrol officers did really well, and then we had some citizens come forward and help us put everything together.”
It’s not only law enforcement who sees a change. Community members also say there is a positive relationship between community engagement and reducing community issues.
“In my opinion, I think that bringing everyone together is huge…there's no barriers here. We're all here to do one thing, and that's be together in Middletown, Ohio, and if we can do that then ultimately the violence goes away, the substance abuse gets less,” said Jennifer Hoffman the Executive Director of River Rocks Recovery, a Middletown addiction treatment center.
Police said they are planning to hire more officers in the future to help curb community violence. They believe they can reach their goal of 80 officers with the next recruitment class. The department currently has 72 officers.
Middletown's city manager recommended Deputy Police Chief Earl Nelson to be the city's new chief of police on Thursday afternoon. Nelson is on vacation right now, so we were not able to speak to him at National Night Out.
Nelson joined the department as a patrol officer in 2005. If approved by the city council, he would be the first black police chief in Middletown's history. The Middletown City Council will vote on Nelson's appointment at its next regular meeting on Aug. 6.
