SIDE STREETS: Man puts heart into security of neighbors

Dennis Moore is all about neighborhood safety, so much so that every Springs neighborhood could learn something from him. And they will get the chance starting next week.

Moore is leading a city effort to revitalize the Neighborhood Watch program. Not because he's paid to; he's a volunteer. He does it because he cares about neighbors.

It started in 1991 when he organized a Neighborhood Watch group in his own Bandelier Drive neighborhood in southeast Colorado Springs. He has presided as block captain ever since.

His efforts escalated dramatically a year ago, after Moore, 61, retired from Air Force civil service. He began working to keep all city neighborhoods safe as the volunteer Neighborhood Watch program coordinator in the Sand Creek division of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

It's important work, freeing Crime Prevention Officer Lori Torrini to concentrate on other duties. Moore is having a citywide impact, such as helping rewrite the Neighborhood Watch Block Captain's Handbook.

On Monday, Moore will begin three months' duty helping train the hundreds of block captains across the Springs. The training is key to the police department's goal of re-energizing the Neighborhood Watch program and standardizing the work of its captains.

(Photos of Moore and details of the Neighborhood Watch program are on my Side Streets blog)

"Dennis has been a tremendous help, and I appreciate his work," Torrini said recently.

"He's been great for me."

Torrini is all that remains of the old Sand Creek Neighborhood Policing Unit, which had included a dozen officers who fought crime on a block-by-block basis. Each of the four city police divisions had similar units, and all were disbanded a few years ago as the agency reorganized.

The units went away, but not the responsibilities, and Torrini has found it overwhelming at times to stay on top of the 170 or so Neighborhood Watch groups in her territory.

There is little time to run quarterly meetings, launch new groups, train block captains - even find proper spots to erect Neighborhood Watch signs. For the past year, Moore has shouldered many of those duties.

"The department is making it a goal in 2009 to revitalize the Neighborhood Watch program," Torrini said. "So his work is ever more important."

The effort starts with a series of 90-minute training classes for all block captains.

The agency wants the captains following the same agenda and rules after a few rogue captains were found exceeding their authority in recent years and even using their status to bully neighbors.

The training sessions, using a new handbook Moore helped write, are a key to teaching folks how to watch for suspicious activity and prevent home invasions, car thefts and vandalism.

Moore is proud of his work and eager to get started. Spend five minutes in the cramped office he shares with Torrini and listen to his command of calls for service statistics in the Springs (nearly 593,679 in 2007) and officers dispatched (318,012 in 2007) and target response times to emergency calls (8 minutes 90 percent of the time) as well as his ability to recite program goals and teach crime-prevention strategies.

This guy is Mr. Neighborhood Watch. He is excited about it, committed to it and his enthusiasm is infectious.

"I've just always thought it was important to work to improve your neighborhood," Moore said. "And as long as it's fun, I'll keep doing it."

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Tell me about your neighborhood: 636-0193 
or bill.vogrin@gazette.com