Sharing A Night Out Together

For more than a decade, Sierra County officials and citizens have joined to honor the National Night Out initiative. Since the event’s inception in 1984, national organizers have encouraged citizens in all communities to assemble together one evening every year, to share important information about crime prevention and available support services. By the joint law enforcement and citizen presence gathered, the event also strives to make a firm statement against crime and drug abuse occurring within every community.

The national program was originally established through US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and is administered by the National Association of Town Watch, which aims to support community-based, law enforcement-affiliated crime prevention activities. Since its inception, the National Night Out program has grown to engage millions of individuals from communities in all fifty states, US territories and military bases around the globe. 

For many years now, officials with Sierra County’s Misdemeanor Compliance/DWI Prevention Program have taken the lead in organizing the local event, and this year, they again spearheaded the gathering. As the evening kicked-off, long-time program director George Lee acknowledged this would be his last event at the helm. Lee was however, quick to offer praise for the efforts of his staff, law enforcement participants, National Honor Society volunteers and all of the other organizations and community supporters that helped to make past gatherings and this year’s event, truly successful. While soon stepping away to pursue another vital community post, Lee expressed a sincere confidence in handing the reins for future National Night Out events, as well as operations of the misdemeanor compliance program to it’s new director, Sandra Segura Lucero. 

As noted, this year’s National Night Out celebration brought together dozens of area and regional law enforcement officials and service organization representatives, and attracted a large crowd of Sierra County families and neighbors. Participating law enforcement agencies included the Sierra County Sheriff’s Department and Detention Center, Truth or Consequences Police Department and Animal Control, New Mexico State Police, US Border Patrol, and New Mexico Game and Fish. The event also included representatives from the T-or-C Volunteer Fire Department, Elephant Butte Fire and Rescue, the Arrey/Derry Volunteer Fire Department and Sierra Vista Hospital’s EMS department, as well as officials with Spaceport America’s fire department, Fiore Industries’ Incident Command and the Roswell-based Native Air Ambulance service. 

Among the local service agencies and organizations joining in the August 2 celebration were T-or-C’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Center, Olive Tree, TOTS Early Intervention, Community Heath Innovations, Sierra County’s Income Support Division of New Mexico’s Human Resources Department, AppleTree, The Club and PullTogether.Org. Further joining in support of the evening’s gathering were representatives from the T-or-C Rotary Club, Farm Bureau Financial Services, the Coalition for Sierra County Veterans and many others.