Danville Police officers walked door-to-door Wednesday evening in the Old West Neighborhood to reach out to residents and talk with them about their needs and how the Police Department can make their neighborhood a safer and better place.
The goal of community engagement walks is to build public trust and develop a personal relationship with the community they serve. Officers handed out cards with direct contact information.
“There is a lot of positives that come from these walks,” Police Chief Scott Booth said. “Sometimes people just want to say ‘hey, we appreciate what you are doing.” That is always nice, but what we are really looking for are things that they don’t want to call us about. Maybe there are issues with speeding in the neighborhood or there are kids playing at night unsupervised and causing too much noise.
“It’s not always little things, but bigger things that are not being addressed effectively. Yet, citizens say they do not want to call because they know we are busy. Well, we are busy, but we are never too busy that we cannot address citizen issues. That is why I like these community engagement walks because they help us find out about problems in neighborhoods that we otherwise might not know.”
The community engagement walk was the third in a series of 12 planned for the next year in neighborhoods across the city. The first walk was held in February in the Cardinal Village neighborhood. At that event, Danville Police — ranging from command staff to patrol officers — gathered at the Cardinal Village youth center, and then divided into eight teams that went door to door to houses on Kemper Road, Bonner Avenue, Edmunds Street and Stephens Street.
The second walk was held last month in the neighborhood surrounding G.L.H. Johnson Elementary School.
The date and location will be announced in advance of the walk.
