A Sturgeon County organization devoted to keeping an eye out for crime is looking for a few good volunteers.
Sturgeon Rural Crime Watch is looking for volunteers to help monitor the county’s wide-open spaces and report crime as they see it.
“We are focused on becoming the eyes and ears of the law enforcement agencies that work in our county because they only have so many members to focus on a huge chunk of real estate; they are not always there when stuff happens,” said Roger Nykipilo, president of the organization.
Nykipilo said the idea behind the group is to bring the community closer together so people will be more likely to notice when something is out of place.
“Often what happens in some rural areas and subdivisions is we don't know our neighbours and we don't know what is going on.”
He said in rural areas just being able to recognize people who live in the area from people who don’t can help the RCMP.
“As a volunteer what we would like you to do is get to your neighbour’s, find out what vehicles they drive.”
Nykipilo said the organization has about 700 members today, but that is down from around 900 they once had and he believes it could easily double to 1,800 people.
Members of the organization are asked to keep an eye out and occasionally to help with fundraising activities and other initiatives.
Right now the organization does only passive surveillance work, but with more members Nykipilo said he could see them expanding to doing regular patrols of areas and alerting police when they see something suspicious.
Anyone interested in joining the organization can get information through the group’s website at www.sturgeonruralcrimewatch.org, email [email protected] or phone Nykipilo at 780-691-1511.
