BIG RAPIDS, Mich. — A West Michigan police department wants to turn dog walkers into safety patrols, and it's a program every city and community can do.
"Its like a modern day neighborhood watch," says Officer Bill Sell with the Big Rapids Department of Public Safety.
The Dog Walker Watch program aims to get more eyes on the street than just Big Rapids Police.
"Pull your nose out of your phone. Watch what you're doing, you know your neighborhoods best," says Sell. "There's 17 of us and there's just over 10,000 residents of the city of Big Rapids, not to mention the Ferris State population of another 7,000 or 8,000 people."
While taking a walk through your neighborhood, Sell encourages you to keep an eye open for anything suspicious. Whether it's an open door or an unknown person.
"We don't want people interacting with people," says Sell. "If they see something suspicious or dangerous, we don't want them to interact with them but to contact us."
Big Rapids Department of Public Safety will share more tips in a training session over Zoom next week and everyone is welcome. Sell hopes people outside of Big Rapids will join, saying the program can be done in any city.
"You can put it together, just contact your local police and have them set it up," he says.
The training session is Wednesday, March 3rd, from 6 to 7 p.m. It's free to join and open to anybody, but you must be registered ahead of time. To register, email Officer Sell at wsell@cityofbr.org with your name, address, telephone number and email address, or you can call him at (231) 527-0005.
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