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Abbeville police helping residents start neighborhood watch program

Posted at 10:46 PM, Mar 20, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-21 00:31:37-04

Abbeville police are teaching residents how to start a neighborhood watch program after complaints of burglaries.

“I mean, you can’t even leave your lawn chairs in the yard because you might wake up, and they’ll be gone,” said Charlene Dallas.

Dallas manages a trailer park in the city. She says young people are wandering her neighborhood, pulling on car door handles in hopes of taking valuables inside.

“I just bought a car that day, and that night, I was peeking through my mini blind, and I watched two little boys try to get into my car. I called the police department. They showed up; they didn’t catch them,” said Dallas.

She is worried the problem will only get worse.

“In the summertime, when school’s out, the kids ain’t got nothing to do, and it’s getting worse and worse. They need to get a fishing license and go fishing and leave us alone,” warned Dallas.

According to Lieutenant Jonathan Touchet, there’s a simple solution to stop burglaries.

“Absolutely lock your car doors. I can tell you over ninety percent of all of our car burglaries are from unlocked vehicles. So, we really want to encourage people to keep their car doors locked, keep all valuables outside of the car if possible,” Lieutenant Touchet said.