City Council Removes Neighborhood Watch Signs for Being Too Racist
The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, took down its Neighborhood Watch signs under the theory that the displays are racist.
Senior elected officials held a ceremony on April 21 to remove the final sign, according to a report from MLive.
“It’s great to see the last of these relics of the past come down,” City Council Member Jen Eyer, a Democrat, commented at the event.
“It really hearkens back to a time when public safety was more about surveillance and exclusion of people from communities and trying to look out for anyone who looked different,” she added, per a report from Blaze Media.
Ann Arbor, MI removes 600 anti-crime signs to be “inclusive” & “welcoming” pic.twitter.com/fnCCF4nAlp
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 29, 2026
Members of the City Council passed a resolution on Dec. 15 ordering the removal of more than 600 Neighborhood Watch signs across Ann Arbor.
The resolution claimed that “Neighborhood Watch programs emerged in the 1970s during a period of national anxiety about crime and social change.”
It said that the programs were “often rooted in assumptions about who did and did not ‘belong’ in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion particularly toward black, brown, and other marginalized residents and visitors.”
Neighborhood Watch also purportedly “encouraged informal surveillance practices that disproportionately targeted people of color and contributed to patterns of exclusion under the guise of public safety.”
Removing the signs cost the city at least $18,000, Blaze Media reported.
Ann Arbor Democratic Mayor Christopher Taylor was also present at the event where the final sign was removed.
Ann Arbor removes 600 Neighborhood Crime Watch signs to be more “inclusive”https://t.co/EB1P7JOai2
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) April 29, 2026
He said at the ceremony that “Neighborhood Watch signs are expressions of exclusion.”
Various social media users noted the absurdity of claiming that Neighborhood Watch and other efforts centered on public safety are somehow racist.
“The woke believe that law and order are anti-black and anti-POC, hence they call for abolishment,” Post Millennial senior editor Andy Ngo remarked.
“Ann Arbor is a welcoming community unless you are Christian, voted for Trump, fought COVID school lockdowns, opted out of the vaccine, or support police,” another user said.
“Not that a sign is a good deterrent anyway, but they just publicly announced to every potential burglar and thief that their Neighborhood Crime watch is over, all are welcome to roll on in. You can’t make this stuff up,” a third added.
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