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EAGLE LAKE, Maine — When disabled veteran James Hembree and his wife moved from Oklahoma to Eagle Lake last March, it was in search of a safer place to raise a family.

Hembree said things got so bad in Oklahoma that he had to pull guns to prevent home invasions on more than one occasion. Worse was when a neighbor threatened to shoot Hembree’s toddler son because Hembree asked the neighbor to turn down his music.

The Hembrees and their three children ages 9, 5 and 2, moved to Aroostook County because statistics showed that crime was low in northern Maine, but now the family has returned to guard mode, Hembree said.

Residents who have formed a neighborhood watch group say that crimes have been increasing in the towns of Wallagrass and Eagle Lake, and it’s difficult to get police to come to the more remote areas of Aroostook County. The group wants to show police there is a problem and a neighborhood watch could do that, according to its members. While theft rates decreased slightly from 2019 to 2020 statewide, they have continued to climb in Aroostook County, according to Maine Department of Public Safety statistics.

More than $18 million worth of property was stolen statewide in 2020, with less than a third of it recovered, according to the 2020 Crime in Maine Report. Property stolen totaled $18,697,782 in 2019 with 30 percent of it recovered; and $17,487,762 in 2018, with a 26.8 recovery rate.

In Aroostook County, there were 558 theft cases reported to police in 2020, a slight increase from 551 in 2019, and significant increase from 516 in 2018, according to the report.

“We are a community in concern and have been trying to get together one way or another to problem-solve. Most have experienced something and wanted some sort of control of their surroundings,” Eagle Lake resident Holly Hardwick said.

Since neither Wallagrass (about 550 residents) nor Eagle Lake (around 850 and more during the summer months) have a local police department, residents report crime to the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office and Maine State Police. Deputies and officers patrol the area, but because of their staffing limitations for patrolling hundreds of square miles, do not maintain a regular presence in either community.

Residents of the two towns claim that items increasingly stolen include catalytic converters, diesel gas, lawnmowers, mopeds and tools, with the latest being fertilizer, according to Hardwick.

One member of the neighborhood watch reported having $6,000 worth of cordless construction tools taken from his Route 11 property several weeks ago.

Until now, residents have lived under a safety dome, but theft is starting to become a real problem, she said.

“It’s an invasion of not only having things taken from you, but what’s worse, is the theft of our security in our neighborhood. Items can be replaced but once that feeling is there, it’s always there,” Hardwick said.

In the first 12 hours after launching a private Facebook page for the neighborhood watch, 90 community members joined. That number stood at 138 on Wednesday. Since the group formed earlier this month, many people have opened up about suspicious behaviors they have noticed on their properties around 2 or 3 a.m., Hardwick said.

Hembree joined the group after seeing a truck with bright headlights in his driveway at 3 a.m. one day. The same vehicle had just been parked in a neighbor’s driveway with the headlights on.

“We haven’t lived here long, so I wasn’t exactly sure if this was common up here, like someone reading meters getting an early start, but then I started hearing about people having stuff stolen,” Hembree said.

Eagle Lake town manager John Sutherland arranged an Aug. 16 meeting between several neighborhood watch members and Sheriff’s Deputy Forrest Dudley so they could find out how to get set up and what they should and shouldn’t do.

“We wanted to make sure whatever we did was legal and did not aggravate the situation,” said Arthur Carroll, Eagle Lake board chairperson and one of the founders of the group.

Carroll, who moved to Eagle Lake from Limerick about five years ago, said he has noticed an increase in crime in the area, but felt it was in line with what’s going on in the state and country. He hopes erecting neighborhood watch signs will deter some of the activity.

“It does two things: it lets local people know we’re looking out for each other, and it lets people coming through the area with maybe thoughts of doing something illegal know that people are looking around and observing,” Carroll said.

Carroll said the sheriff’s office and state police have increased patrols to the area since the neighborhood watch group expressed its concerns.

“It’s a beautiful part of the state. People are very friendly,” he said. “We just want to keep it that way.”