The Clarkdale Police Department will be hosting a National Night Out event on Tuesday, Aug. 6, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Clarkdale Town Park at 1001 Main Street.
“National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live,” the NNO website stated. “National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.”
The CPD has been participating in the program since 2011, which will also involve the Jerome Police Department, the Yavapai Apache Police Department and Yavapai College Campus Safety. The event will feature hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, soft drinks and water along with demonstrations, activities and informational displays from city and county organizations and area businesses.
The event is free and open to the public and ample parking is available.
“It’s just to promote community-oriented policing and to have the community come in and engage with the police,” Clarkdale Police Department Lt. Joe Candelaria said. “For me, community policing is working with our community to solve problems to provide safety for them and to include them and what the police department does.”
Verde Valley Fire and Verde Valley Ambulance will also be present, as will Yavapai County Search and Rescue. The Clarkdale Police Department recently purchased a drone and Candelaria confirmed that they will be giving a presentation on it during the event.
“We will be having our drone flying … it’s brand-new and we just bought it and just had our officer certified,” Candelaria said, and explained the department is still writing its policies for using the drone. “We’ll probably use it for any type of search and rescue mission we need, anytime we need to see what’s going on from a higher view … We will have one of our police vehicles out there that people can look at.”
CPD will have a free dunk tank setup to provide attendees with the opportunity to give local civic leaders a chance to cool off and will be giving BolaWrap demonstrations at 5:45 and 6:15 p.m.
“It’s a less lethal device,” Candelaria said. “It wraps around the person preventing their arms or legs from moving.” Attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets for the chance to win prizes from Verde Valley-area businesses.
The cities of Cottonwood and Sedona are planning similar events in October
