Jacksboro Crime Watch begins organizing

A new organization to help curb criminal activity in Jacksboro held its first meeting Monday.

About 20 interested residents gathered in the VFW Meeting Hall to begin lining out the group’s organization.

Ken Hargrave led the meeting and explained why he wanted to start a local Crime Watch group.

“I see a need for more citizen involvement to take the fear out of the citizens and put it in the criminals,” he said.

Hargrave said he has talked at length with Jacksboro Police Chief Terry McDaniel who had some concerns of vigilantism concerning the group.

“It’s a two-way street,” Hargrave said. “Crime Watch is not going to be above the law. We have to be exemplary when it comes to the law. We will be there to support our friends and neighbors in blue.”

The focus of Crime Watch will be observation and awareness to crimes occurring and reporting them to police. Another goal will be social interaction between community members to increase neighbors looking out for neighbors.

“We want (criminals) to see that Jacksboro is a hard target and make them move on to do their crime somewhere else,” Hargrave said. “We’re not going to change them, but we can make this a hard target.”

To read the complete article, see the Aug. 19 edition of the Herald-Gazette.