Sedona’s version of National Night Out, a nationwide series of events intending to promote community-police relations, will come to the Verde Valley on Saturday, Oct. 4 from 3 to 5 p.m. at Posse Grounds Park, at 525 Posse Ground Road.

The event means to provide fun interactions with law enforcement officers in the communities of those offices. Sedona Police Sgt. Raquel Oliver said there will be 24 or 25 vendors setting up booths.

“Neighborhoods host block parties, festivals, parades, cookouts and various other community events with safety demonstrations, seminars, youth events, visits from emergency personnel, exhibits,” the National Night Out website states.

None of the police departments from Sedona, Cottonwood or Camp Verde technically participated in National Night Out, which is scheduled for the first Tuesday in August each year. But keeping with its spirit, they each have events planned for the first part of October.

Sedona Police Sgt. Raquel Oliver said there will be 24 or 25 vendors setting up booths.

“For example, we have the Verde Valley Search and Rescue, or Yavapai family advocacy center and Coco [Coconino County]’s Emergency Management, Yavapai Emergency Management, so for us to have them all in one spot really helps out the community,” Oliver said.
Oliver said last year was her first year organizing this event, but she hopes this year will be better because she wants there to be more demonstrations and vendors for the community to interact with and see.

“We’ll do a traffic demo, DUI, drone, SWAT and K-9,” she said. “… We’ll also have free food, usually hamburgers and hot dogs and drinks. We have the caricature sketches again and lots of swag.”

The traffic demo, Oliver said, is basically a way for members of the public to put themselves in the shoes of a police officer during a traffic stop. She said it was a hit for the community police academy.

“I added it because they were saying how surprising or how nervous it felt to walk up on a car that you don’t know anything about,” she said. “And they really enjoyed that part of … the community police academy.”
The K-9 squad will be represented by SPD K-9 Handler Catherine Beers and K9 Sam, who will be doing a narcotics detection demonstration.

“I’ll place training aids on a vehicle as well as in an open air space,” Beers said. “Then I’ll deploy K9 Sam to locate the odors of illegal drugs [a synthetic version]. Once he located the source, he will be rewarded with his ball.”

K-9 Sam will also be at the park earlier in the day on Oct. 4 for Sedona WagFest & Fair from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

More information about both events is available at sedonaaz.gov