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Monrovia National Night Out Encourages Community Safety
Arcadia Weekly Aug 08, 2011
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By Michelle R. Brown
Monrovia Police Department’s held a National Night Out Against Crime on Tuesday, August 2nd in an effort to raise awareness and “Give Neighborhood Crime & Drugs A Going Away Party” as their flier so aptly put it.
Children and parents alike enjoyed free popcorn, hotdogs, and snow cones whilst listening to live music performed by the band Upstream and learning about area programs, safety, and mingling with local police.
Residents could try on a ballistic vest and helmet, and climb inside a police vehicle capable of handling .50 calibre bullet fire. The vehicle was part of Foothill Special Enforcement Team, a regional tactical special weapons team founded in 2005 to assist in making locations secure.
According to Monrovia Police Lieutenant and Assistant Team Commander Nels Ortlund, who has been on the team since its creation, the team has “Never taken a life,” nor have they shot anybody. They also have never had a team member shot or injured. FSET trains every two weeks, and goes on approximately 12 missions / year, 80 percent of which are high risk search warrant missions.
Residents also were able to obtain free child ID cards with their children’s fingerprints by insurance company New York Life.
Monrovia resident Donna Espinosa felt that getting the ID card was important “for safety,” and had her daughter Hana Tucker fingerprinted by New York Life Agent Mark Wurtumberg.
As well as the fingerprinting program, Monrovia PD also had a booth encouraging drivers to work for community safety.
“[We’re] trying to get people to slow down in residential areas,” said Monrovia Police Officer John Meeks, as he handed out signs for residents to display in their front yards for 60 days, reminding drivers not to go faster than 25 mph.
Monrovia Police also had a DARE table, despite no longer being able to provide a DARE officer to local schools due to the financial constraints, according to an officer who wished to remain anonymous. Current officers cannot just volunteer time to the DARE program, in order for DARE to start up again there would have to be a full time employed DARE officer, and financially the Police Department cannot currently provide that.
As well as seasoned officers, there were also volunteer explorers at the event. Two such explorers were 16-year-old D. Ramos and 17-year-old CJ Garett. Garett, a lifelong Monrovia resident has been an explorer for two years and plans to join the police force when he is old enough.
‘This is my first time doing [National Night Out]” Garett said, “It’s a nice little set up.”
This year’s National Night Out brought out a crowd of all ages, and was a community step towards raising awareness, becoming involved, and preventing crime through education. For more info on any of the programs above, or on crime prevention, call the Monrovia Police Department at (626)-256-8000.
