New neighborhood watch group begins in Groves

Published 4:48 pm Friday, January 24, 2025

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A new neighborhood watch has been formed in Groves aiming to keep residents informed and hopefully reduce crime.

The group held its first meeting recently at the Groves Municipal Court. 

The watch began as part of new initiatives by Groves City Marshal Christopher Robin after being elected this past November. While campaigning around Groves Robin spoke with residents about their concerns and noticed the issues people were having were not being reported to the police. 

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“A lot of times people would go to their community pages on Facebook or just friends or their family and they would make word of it but they would get things going,” Robin said. “You know there was a time when neighborhood watch was a little bit more prevalent, maybe more popular than it is today, I think social media has made things easy.” 

Robins says the Watch belongs to the citizens of Groves. Many neighborhood watch programs have community leaders or block leaders to help organize sections of the city. 

“It needs to be our neighborhood watch,” he said. “The neighborhoods want to be involved with it, it needs to be something that becomes their own. Because then its cohesive, then its authentic.” 

The first meeting of the watch set out to establish a foundation of ow citizens can get involved and how they can stay informed in a cooperative effort to reduce crime in Groves.

Robin has also filled four of the five vacancies that the city’s police department had as well as recruiting two new cadets.

The Neighborhood Watch program seeks to improve the safety of citizens in Groves as neighbors look out for other neighbors with assistance from the police.

The Watch is to meet again at 6 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Groves Police Department, 4201 Main Ave.