National Night Out Expected to Draw Thousands

National Night Out returns to for the 10th straight year on Tuesday.

The event, which organizers are expecting around 4,000 people to attend, is free and has a number of fun interactive activities for the public to learn about safety practices.

"The goal is to bring awareness of crime prevention practices and techniques and services that are available to the community, for the public," Morris County Park Police Lt. David Doyle said.

"To send a message, let the criminals know that the community is getting together—the government agencies, police agencies, and emergency networks and services—in order to make the communities a more safer, more durable place to live."

The event, co-sponsored by the Morris County Park Commission and Morris County Park Police, will have dozens of representatives from municipal, county and state law enforcement agencies holding interactive demonstrations and answering questions to the public. The United States Army and Coast Guard, FBI, and Secret Service are also scheduled to attend.

Participants will be able to explore the equipment and emergency vehicles, such as in motorcycles and fire engines.

The wide range of activities are also aimed for kids to enjoy. There will be informative demonstrations on water safety, stranger danger, and fire safety and hazards. 

One of the water safety activties will use a dunk tank in the game.

"Every game we have is associated with some sort of lesson that the kids can learn so that they can have a good time, but they are also absorbing something in the meantime," Doyle said.

Some of the local departments and organizations that will be present are the , Morris County Sheriff's Office, Morris County OEM, Morris County Fire Prevention, NJ FamilyCare, and the Red Cross.

Morris County Sheriff's Office provides one of the most popular demonstrations, Doyle said, when they do a robotics demonstration about bomb robots.

The schedule for the demonstrations will be available at the event, so the participants can make sure they don't miss out on anything.

In addition to the safety activities, there will be free food, giveaways, ice skating, a bounce house, and DJ entertainment.

Although National Night Out has been in Morris Township for a decade, this is its 29th year the parent organization, National Association of Town Watch, is holding it.

"I like the fact that we're giving something back to the public, giving them basically avenues to help them in their day-to-day lives," Doyle said. "That's important."

For more information about National Night Out, visit www.morrisparks.net.