Virtually every community in the Miss-Lou participated in Tuesday’s National Night Out events.

The purpose of National Night Out is to promote partnerships between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. The outcome, hopefully, is to make people safer.

In Vidalia members of the community converged on the parking lot of the former Fred’s discount store. There, volunteers grilled hotdogs and served plates of food to members of the community and fire and police officers, who all mingled amongst themselves, getting to know each other as neighbors and friends.

On the Natchez bluff, people set up tents and lawn chairs and enjoyed music and a bounce house for the children while eating hotdogs and drinking cool beverages.

Members of the Natchez Police Department visited with residents, but perhaps, most importantly, as Natchez Police Chief Walter Armstrong pointed out, was that neighbors from disparate neighborhoods got to meet each other and form bonds that breach the bounds of neighborhoods.

That, Armstrong said, was the purpose of Natchez deciding this year to host one big event on the bluff rather than traveling to different neighborhoods for separate celebrations. Adams County Sheriff’s Office officials did travel to various communities as they are more spread out than the city’s neighborhoods and met individually with the various communities before converging en masse to join the big Natchez party on the bluff.

The overriding theme of the night was that law enforcement members not only protect our community, but they also are members of our community.

They need your help to combat people who commit crimes or people who are likely to commit crimes. Good citizens are law enforcement’s extra eyes and ears to help them by reporting crimes when they happen and potential crimes before they happen.

Tuesday’s Night Out events went a long way toward improving community relationships and quality of life in the Miss-Lou, and we commend the officers and members of the community who turned out to participate.