Volunteers sought for Salem area crime watch

SALEM — Wanted: people with eyes and ears and a telephone.

That’s what’s needed for a volunteer effort that’s under way to start a new crime-watch program in Salem and Perry Township.

A crime-watch program in the city faded away years ago, city officials have said.

The new effort was recently sparked by Mayor-elect Jerry Wolford. He knew Janet Gemmill of Salem, who helped develop what is now the Citizens’ Crime Watch of Miami-Dade. She eventually moved to Salem to be near her family.

Miami-Dade is the name of the county in Florida and includes 35 municipalities, according to Carmen Caldwell, the present executive director of the agency there. The Miami-Dade program has had as many 1.5 million people involved in the program at one point.

Gemmill said when she left as chairwoman of the board, the program had 270,000 volunteers. That’s more than twice the population of Columbiana County, which is about 103,000 people.

When she began as a volunteer, “I organized my neighborhood and worked my way up quickly,” Gemmill said.

She got involved because the “pillowcase rapist” was at large in the Miami area. He wore a pillowcase over his head while he raped his victims.

“I lived in a pretty safe area,” Gemmill said. But when she heard of the crime-watch program, “I thought it made sense. Be prepared.”

The program doesn’t really focus on crime after dark, because that’s when people are at home.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com