OCPA Crime
Prevention Volunteer of the Year – Honorable Mention
Roger King, City of
For more than 20 years, Roger King has been a dedicated volunteer coordinator for Vandalia’s Neighborhood Watch Program. And in the past few years, Mr. King has taken on even more volunteer duties that have had a positive impact on his community, at one point even assisting an officer with an arrest.
Mr. King’s volunteer activities in 2006 included recruiting neighbors to participate in – and help lead – his street’s Neighborhood Watch Program; volunteering to work a booth at the third annual National Night Out; and planning and working at a Neighborhood Watch Fundraiser. He takes his Neighborhood Watch coordinator duties seriously, never missing a coordinators’ meeting, and regularly checking the E-SORN web site for registered sex offenders and notifying his neighbors.
In the past year, while helping the Vandalia Division of Police monitor a suspected drug house, Mr. King notified a patrol officer about a suspected customer leaving a drug dealer’s apartment. The officer stopped the person for driving under suspension. When the suspect resisted arrest, Mr. King, without hesitation, jumped into the fray to assist the officer. It turned out the suspect was a convicted felon who was high on cocaine at the time of the arrest. Afterwards, Mr. King stated it was his duty to help because it was his neighborhood that he was trying to keep safe.
That is why Roger King has been recognized with honorable mention in the Volunteer of the Year category