CALEDONIA — At night, it’s easy to miss the driveway leading to the red brick church. It’s dark along Highway 12 East, heading into Caledonia. There are clusters of houses and then there are none. There are scattered subdivisions and stretches of road where the only thing you see is the occasional deer and your own headlights, shining against the trees.
There was a time when Caledonia resident Rhonda Holmes felt comfortable leaving her house unlocked, but when a neighbor became one of the latest victims in a string of unsolved burglaries, Holmes started being more careful.
Thursday night, she joined a crowd of more than 200 people who gathered at Border Springs Baptist Church to learn from local law enforcement agents how to protect themselves and take back their community from crime. By the end of the evening, she was standing in line with a handful of other women, waiting to sign up for a gun safety class.
The meeting was organized by John Dodson, 68, whose great-grandfather helped found the church where he is now deacon. As he stood in the fellowship hall after the meeting, he said he was pleased with the turnout. His home hasn’t been burglarized since the 1980s, but like almost everyone in the room, he knew someone who had been burglarized, including several church members.
“We’ve had spurts (of crime) before,” Dodson said. “This is one of the higher ones.”
Like the victims themselves, the crowd represented a cross-section of the community — young singles, married couples juggling babies and neighborhood-watch pamphlets, seniors, retirees, pastors, police and local leaders.
Typically, crime peaks around the Christmas holidays and begins dropping off in January before peaking again in May, newly elected Lowndes County Sheriff Mike Arledge told the crowd. The recent rash of break-ins has been different. They are occurring predominantly in the daytime, around 2-3 p.m., and they’re hitting the Caledonia, New Hope and Upper North Columbus areas hard.
But Arledge sees reason for optimism. Overlapping patrols and vigilant citizens have stopped some would-be criminals before they ever stepped over the threshold. He believes the gun safety classes, self-defense seminars and neighborhood-watch programs will help, too.
“A lot of these crimes can be prevented,” Arledge said.
Many people wanted to know more about gun ownership, and they peppered District Attorney Forrest Allgood with questions ranging from how to obtain a concealed-carry permit to when a person can legally shoot an intruder or assailant.
Others snatched up safety-tip leaflets and took notes as Tammy Prescott, of the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, spoke about how to form an organized neighborhood watch.
It’s important to get to know your neighbors and establish a buddy system, Prescott said. If you’re going to go out of town, call the sheriff’s office and let deputies know — they’ll patrol your neighborhood each day, she advised. Become familiar with the comings and goings of your area, she said, and report unusual vehicles and suspicious activity.
“Three things are certain,” she said. “We’re going to pay taxes, we’re going to see crime, and we’re going to see drugs.”
But the message of the night was not about being afraid. It was about taking control.
“We are a community,” said LCSO Investigator Tony Cooper, shortly before the meeting ended in prayer. “If you see something that looks suspicious, call 911. We can’t be everywhere, but y’all can be our eyes and ears.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.