HOLLISTER - One neighborhood in Hollister is watching for the bad guys and, instead of the police, they might be the ones to bust you.
After Brian Malandrone had his car burglarized on Majestic Drive about eight months ago, he decided to take action.
The burglars got away with GPS and a video player.
"I woke up and there was glass all over the driveway and so forth and looked inside of the truck and of course there was glass all over the seat," he said.
Malandrone realized police can't be everywhere all the time.
"So I started looking into it and found out that we only had three officers on patrol at any given time and in order to combat that I started the Hollister Neighborhood Watch on Facebook," he said.
In fact, the city only has 22 officers when it's supposed to have about 50.
Now hundreds of people jumped on the social media bandwagon to fight for their community, including Hollister Police Chief David Westrick.
"People in Hollister a lot of them because of Neighborhood Watch have said enough is enough. This is our community and we want to take it back," he said.
"The budget cuts hurt so much and we have to do something. They certainly can't do it all themselves," Malandrone said.
By this time last year, Hollister had four homicides and so far this year there haven't been any.
Chief Westrick said he can't help but think the Neighborhood Watch group played a role.
