^[1]Tuesday, August 5, is National Night Out ^[2]. You can participate by locking your doors, turning on outside lights, and spending an evening outside with neighbors and police.

National Night Out (NNO) is a nationwide program that organizes individual communities against local crime. Last year, over 11,000 communities across the country, and about 60 neighborhoods in San Jose, participated in National Night Out. Conceived in the early ’80s to increase participation in town watch programs, NNO in San Jose today has shifted emphasis toward improving contact between neighborhoods and the Police Department.

The goals of National Night Out are to

• Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;
• Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;
• Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and
• Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

Around San Jose, the bay area, and the whole country, volunteers will participate by showing support for their police officers and arranging activities to bring out the community to meet their police, usually in local parks.

In my neighborhood, San Jose’s Northside, National Night Out will be celebrated with an outdoor showing of the movie The Water Horse in Backesto Park, a picnic dinner for 500 people, and DJ music by Northsider Victor Tapia. The picnic dinner begins at 6 PM, and the movie will be shown at dusk.

If your neighborhood has a National Night Out event planned, please leave us a comment and let us know.