Years ago, I had started the concept of a mobile neighborhood business watch patrol. The idea allowed all mobile businesses in the area, as cell phones were just coming onto the scene, to call in unusual or suspicious behavior. This was back in the early 80s. Well, the program was an immediate success and everyone signed up, all the local business people and those companies with fleets, joining together to prevent crime. Everyone loved it from the city councils to parents, everyone except the police department.
As young man perhaps a little naïve I couldn't understand why the police would be so against the problem, but eventually I learned a tough lesson - they didn't want the competition, or anyone else doing their job. Still, they were not doing their job, as we had crime in the streets and the added visibility actually curtailed some of that. Of course, this also prompted the city councils in many of the original cities we started this in to question their expensive contracts with the county sheriff department. Well, you can imagine how the police officers felt about that! Talk about a fiefdom and group of control freaks.
It turns out nothing has changed, not out here in CA or anywhere else in the country. I've received complaints from mobile watch patrols in UT, FL, VA, CO, WA, and MA. In fact, not long ago I received a complaint from a gentleman who'd had his watch patrol volunteer staff pulled over a cited for having a yellow or green strobe light on top of their cars when cruising the neighborhood providing visibility. He couldn't believe the police were giving them grief. He wondered if that was illegal to use strobe lights when patrolling. Okay so, let's talk about this for a moment.
Yes, that's a good question, and as most already know "blue" is out of the picture, as that is only for law enforcement and red is for other emergency services, patrolling in a neighborhood watch patrol is NOT an emergency. Yellow in the past has been allowed in CA if it is flashing, but they don't want green as people might mistake it for a "green signal" light and that might cause an accident. Further, there are issues with certain types of lights which can trigger epileptic seizures.
Green lighting is better in heavy fog for some reason but then you run into the same problem of being mistaken for green signal lights. I do not know the laws in every state of course, that's just too much to keep track of for one man, the California vehicle could be like a dictionary these days.
So why does Law enforcement hate watch patrols and why are they citing this man with traffic tickets? Well, because it cuts into their fiefdoms, but with budget cuts they do need more coverage and eyes and ears, even if it irks them to have someone else out there adding to the visibility. Some police folks see it as a job threat while others worry that now they have to watch over vigilantism and people out running around who could get tangled up with criminals meaning they have more people to protect getting in their way.
Indeed, I understand all that, I am sure my readers do too, but if the police are not getting it done, then the community has no choice but to add visibility to decrease the size of the crime triangle. Consider this; most terrorists are caught due to an original tip off, not due to pure police work.
Incidentally, I've been harassed in the past too, I even ended up losing my driver's license a few times due to excessive BS tickets, which at the time was a real bummer since, at the time I was a young man in the mobile car wash business. What's my advice to mobile neighborhood watch patrols? Well, you got to do what you've got to do, but you can't break the law doing it. Remember police are union boys and they protect their own, so watch out. They don't play the game fair, they like their fiefdom, control, and authority, all power does - it is human nature - unfortunately?
Okay so, back to the color issue for the lights and visibility. You see, the laws in every state vary with color of lights, some states don't allow any flashing lights or even non-flashing LED ground effect lighting and SEMA (automotive after-market product association) is really miffed about that, as it doesn't hurt anyone and it looks cool, but it is against the law in a good many states.
So, all of this is much to the chagrin of the proverbial ice cream man on a sunny weekend summer day, and other mobile concerns, some say if everyone did it the place would like Tijuana Mexico - so, I'll give them that, but I still say the 4:00 AM newspaper delivery drivers and the mobile watch should have lights on them just like the school buses and garbage trucks.
So, what does a mobile neighborhood watch program do? Well, the best way of course to deal with all of this is to work with the police themselves, but if they already are against you, that's just not going to work very well, but sometimes a little inner city political schmoozing can help.
If your neighborhood mobile watch patrol is having similar issues, you are not alone, as I've had many folks contact me around the country with similar concerns, and we do have a real problem with overbearing police authority in the country at every level. It's too bad for a nation which prides itself on freedom and liberty, but often government agencies (not all) can't get the job done due to budgets, costs, bureaucracy, inefficiency, political correctness, unions, or well, some just don't care.
If you'd like to take this conversation to a much higher level, please shoot me an email, as I've been involved in these things for about 30-years off and on. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Neighborhood Watch Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net
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