Lynchburg residents come out to National Night Out Against Crime at Miller Park - Lynchburg News and Advance

Several dozens of people gathered for food and fun at Miller Park on Tuesday night for the 34th annual National Night Out Against Crime.

“This is the first time we’ve ever tried to do it like this at Miller Park,” Lynchburg Police Department Community Services Coordinator Steven Wood said.

Hosted by LPD, the event was supported by several sponsors: the Lynchburg Sheriff’s Office, Lynchburg Parks and Recreation, One Community One Voice Lynchburg, Greater Lynchburg Transit Company, KD Country Radio and Target.

The event, themed as a “Farewell Party to Crime,” had food trucks; vendors, booths housing different city services and organizations, a bounce house, an emergency vehicle car show and more.

The event had taken about six months to plan, he said, though Lynchburg has been participating for the past 23 years.

“We have 62 neighborhood watch groups in the city, and typically, each watch group would host a smaller event within their neighborhood,” he said. “This year, we wanted to take some of the work off of them and do just one big event.”

Tinbridge Hill Neighborhood Watch member Pamela Brown said her community usually hosts their event at the Yoder Center.

“I just wanted to come support it and see how it turned out,” she said.

LPD Chief Raul Diaz said the focus of the program is to bring attention to community and police partnerships in addressing crime issues.

“Here in the city of Lynchburg, you can tell that people take this seriously,” he said.

“We obviously have our national night out, but we also have a lot of crime watch groups that work diligently 365 days a year with the police department to address those types of issues.”

Lynchburg Interim Sheriff Don Sloan agreed and said the event is an opportunity for local law enforcement to come together with the community to combat societal issues such as criminal behavior.

Additionally, it humanizes local law enforcement and emergency medical service officials, he said.

“This is an opportunity to show the community that we’re a part of the community,” he said. “We live here. I’m a resident of the city, I pay taxes, my son now attends Liberty University … and our element within law enforcement is to draw us all together because we can make a difference when we work together.”

Brown agreed, saying the event allowed the community to enjoy the night out while getting to know one another.

“It’s just like people in general,” she said. “If you make yourself known in a good way, then people will see you in that light. But if they don’t know you, how are they supposed to know who you are?”

Brandy Goode, of Lynchburg, was at the event with her four children.

She originally had shown up to Miller Park to attend her eldest child’s basketball game with the Hill City Street League, where the Cavaliers were facing off with the Cardinals, she said.

However, she had seen the event advertised earlier in the day and so drifted over to check it out.

One of her sons, 5-year-old Jace Wright-Goode, said his face, which was painted as a tiger by volunteers at a nearby Target tent, was his favorite part of the event so far.

This wasn’t the first time he got his face painted, he said.

He previously had been disguised as a soccer ball.

This event serves to bring attention to the relationship between the community and police one night per year, Diaz said.

“We’re a team here,” Diaz said. “Yeah, I may live in this part of town, you may live in this part of town, but at the end of the day, we all live in Lynchburg [and] we’re trying to make it a better place.”

But he said in Lynchburg, this is a “365-day event.”

“We work with our community every day, and we’re reaching out and building bridges,” he said.

“So we just have this day because it’s a national day to bring attention to it, but this is something we do every day in Lynchburg.”

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