In the wake of the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old high school student in her home, Kettering community leaders are re-examining the role neighborhood watch organizations can play in crime prevention.

Prince George’s County police are investigating the Aug. 22 shooting of Amber Deanna Stanley, a senior at Charles Flowers High School in Springdale, after an unknown gunman forced his way into her home and shot her multiple times in her bedroom.

Prince George’s County Police Department spokesman Cpl. Larry Johnson said Thursday that police have no new information about the incident or the investigation.

“We’re hopefully relying on members of the community to see if they can provide us with some tips, or any information they can give us to help solve this mystery,” Johnson said.

The incident has sparked one community group to renew efforts to start a neighborhood watch.

Angela Brock, president of the Towns of Kettering Homeowners Association, said her community group’s watch lapsed years ago, but the recent incident jump started July discussions to revive the program.

“...This incident really heightened it and provided some urgency,” Brock said. “It opened [an opportunity] up so that people may pay more attention to it and be more active.”

Brock said she now has 15 volunteers to become block captains, adding that her goal is to have a total of 50 — one for each block in the 770-home community.

“Although the incident was in a single-family home and not in our neighborhood, it’s still important for us to have a go-to person who is very familiar with every home within a given block,” Brock said.

Other Kettering leaders are reserving judgment and evaluation until police release more information about the shooting.

Phil Lee, executive director of the Kettering Civic Federation, a coalition of eight homeowners associations including the KHA, said that until the public knows whether the incident could have been prevented through neighborhood watch practices, he can’t begin to review current neighborhood watch practices.

Along with routine — sometimes daily — communication with police through the crime prevention team, all of the neighborhood watch groups meet quarterly to exchange and share ideas and issues they face, Lee said.

“I am confident and comfortable that we watch the streets carefully, but clearly, nobody knows what happens behind closed doors,” Lee said. “...If the police come back and say it was something more, a community issue, I will look at anything we need to do [to improve the programs]. But we will not define our community by crime.”

KCF president Deborah Spencer said the incident’s proximity may produce better vigilance.

“It heightens awareness when things like this happen,” Spencer said. “People are more aware of their neighbors and what goes on, and they take more of an interest.”

ewagner@gazette.net