A group of Forest Glade residents concerned about a rash of violent crime held a news conference this morning calling for a proper neighbourhood watch.
Community activist Greg Lemay, along with past Crime Stoppers president Lina Busico and other residents gathered in the parking lot outside of Forest Glade Arena to make their plea following a weekend shooting that left five people injured.
Lemay says they already have about 80 names of people in the area ready to help, which could be as simple as being block captain and reporting what happens.
"I want to thank the Windsor Police Service for the hard work that they're doing in our community, but they cannot be everywhere. That's why we're calling on the community to be the eyes and ears. We shouldn't have to live in fear of our kids being victims at this very park. Enough is enough and we need to take out community back," he stated.
Lemay says anyone who'd like to be a block captain can reach out to him or someone else involved, and the group has already had contact with the Safety Village as well.
The weekend shooting comes in the wake of a murder on Forest Glade Drive near Wildwood Drive in late December.
Busico says back in early 2020 she and Lemay had gotten together to discuss a neighbour watch, but the pandemic put a dent in the idea, until now.
"Had we had this going the eyes and the ears would've already been helping the Windsor Police," she continued. "Everybody who had cameras we would've been able to tell them all about it, but today let's start forward, we need block captains because we need to make our community safe."
Lemay says with concerns high in the community, this is the way to go to allow them to influence a bigger police presence.
"And how you do that is by reporting. What's happening here is things are going on in our community, people aren't reporting about it, and that's causing a problem. We need the proper stats, if you look at the stats out of the Safety Village they're concerning. Again reporting it is how you influence a police presence, that's how you're going to get the car when there's only so many cars to go around."
The neighbourhood watch would establish a captain per block, so if there's a street with four blocks they'd need four captains.
Block captains would report anything that goes on back to Lemay and company, so the proper stats can be reported to Windsor Police and Crime Stoppers.
A sign would be posted in areas to notify the community that there is a neighbourhood watch in effect, but captains wouldn't be marked.
- with files from Rob Hindi