By Ryan Ostry
Bugle Staff
@RyanOstry_BR18
rostry@buglenewspapers.com
By Ryan Ostry
With the way modern society has become prone to violence and brutality, there is never enough awareness and precaution that can be taken place in order to make things safer.
Last week, Woodridge held another annual community roll call in order to help inform the neighborhood watch group and further provide other questions about vandalism, graffiti and crime prevention.
Management analyst Jim Hoff who has helped create the frequent community police department roll calls, has tried to focus on the people and doing whatever they can to try and improve ever year to be a safer region.
“This all started a few years ago and we really just wanted to connect with people to emphasize the partnership that we have had and trying to continue to build with the community,” Hoff said. “This year has been different because we have actually been partnering with specific people in the neighborhoods who are called championships that organize and help people to come to their roll call within their neighborhood.”
Hoff also sees this as a chance for locals to be more familiarized with local law enforcement.
“It’s just a wonderful way for the residents to connect with the officers that serve the community,” Hoff said. “It’s an easy way to meet the officers and for the officers to be open about what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
Local Woodridge Chief of Police Officer Bryan Cunningham has been a police officer for more than 30 years and said that this meeting gives people a chance that doesn’t usually happen by getting to ask questions and listen to officers thoughts and concerns about the area they are patrolling.
Building a rapport with the officers leads to more trust, which helps with camaraderie in the neighborhoods so the residents can have a better understanding what is happening in their vicinity.
“The community connections are really strong here which helps people to know what’s going on more,” Cunningham said. “The people seem to actually enjoy having the police around which is nice, and this community roll call that we started a couple years ago draws a lot of people so they see [police officers] in a different light.”
Having the community roll call has helped ensure more safety for the residents, and there is not one, but five meetings every year to help educate natives about what is happening.
Not only did locals get to speak with police officers, ask questions and voice their concerns, but local storm chaser Dan Murray was in attendance to provide information about what to do in the case of an emergency with one of these catastrophic storms.
Murray said the helpful details about what to do in case of thunderstorms, lightning and tornadoes really puts residents in more of a calm state of mind.
“Us as storm chasers really want to help and improve on giving people a better warning for when these storms or horrific weather hits,” Murray said. “Getting people safe by warning them about the storm or giving them more opportunity to get to a shelter is [the most important thing].”