Neighboring Baton Rouge subdivisions Sherwood Forest and Broadmoor are launching a joint effort to ramp up crime prevention efforts through each neighborhood’s crime prevention and neighborhood improvement district.
The two neighborhoods off Florida Boulevard, separated by Sharp Road, contain a combined 5,000 houses that are home to about 15,000 voters. Broadmoor formally organized its crime district in 2014 and Sherwood Forest began its district early this year.
“We don’t want to run crime out of one neighborhood and into the other,” Gary Patureau, chair of the Sherwood Forest Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Improvement District, explains of the joint effort. ”Our subdivision associations have always worked together.”
Representatives from both neighborhood crime prevention districts are hosting a press conference and community meeting at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Broadmoor United Methodist Church, 10230 Mollylea Drive. They’ll discuss current crime prevention efforts with homeowners and the public at the meeting. Police officers also will be on hand to give tips on best safety practices, while representative from Vernon’s Hardware will provide advice on home protection accessories, including outdoor lighting, reinforced locks and strike plates on doors.
Sherwood Forest and Broadmoor are in BRPD’s District 3, where eight homicides and more than 600 burglaries were reported last year, according to BRPD’s annual report. Patureau says both neighborhood crime districts will increase communication between the two and share more information to prevent future incidents.
Patureau adds that burglaries and other crime rates have dropped in Sherwood Forest since the crime district was introduced. And protecting your home from a potential break-in doesn’t need to be extremely costly, he says.
“If you go back and look at home invasions, a lot of them are breaking the door frame. It costs about $7 to install wider strike plates that can prevent that,” Patureau says. “Lighting deters criminals, it lights up and they’ll move on to the next dark house.”
Patureau says Saturday’s community meeting is timely because the Sherwood Forest district has operated for about five months now and crime rates have escalated statistically in the summer. They will finish the meeting with a call for residents to join the neighborhood watch.
“We are like a forgotten corridor of Baton Rouge,” Patureau says. “We want to make sure people are aware of all the things that are good in our neighborhoods. I have a grandson growing up here and I raised my son here.”
—Deanna Narveson
