FALLS CITY – The Falls City Police Department announced Monday the city’s national night out event has won national recognition for the third year in a row.
Officer Zachary Ractliffe noted that out of 16,000 communities to observe National Night Out, Falls City is one of 185 to receive the national award and the only city in Nebraska to be recognized.
He said a focus on fun for kids during a community crime prevention and safety event has been a key from the very beginning.
Ractliffe: “Well, the first year, we actually started planning it in February. We didn’t know what to expect, but we put tons of work in it because we wanted to make sure that it was really a fun event and had a lot of people coming out.”
He said there were even more first responders involved in the second year.
“We saw more people coming out, everybody having a great time, so we were like we just got to keeping adding more and more fun stuff, getting police interacting with kids. I think we increased by about 100 people every time.”
Last year, the event was held at Stanton Lake.
Ractliffe said an event like National Night Out has been really important to the city’s community policing effort and offered his gratitude to the city council, businesses and everyone who comes out for its success.
