This year, Doug Arp will live in a concrete truck and tell people, “Don’t let crime put your neighborhood in concrete shoes.”

It’s the latest in the retired police officer’s gimmicks to draw attention to the national fight against crime. National Night Out Against Crime falls on  Aug. 4, and Arp will move into his temporary digs a week from today and spend a week there.

The Mississippi Materials Corp. concrete truck will be parked at the Culkin Fire Department on Freetown and Culkin roads. Firefighters will assist him all week, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said.

The 58-year-old Arp said his theme refers to the old gangster saying that meant one was thrown into water with concrete weights.

Arp said the national day is a good way for neighbors to meet “law officials in a non-confrontational setting that’s fun for both.”

“You never meet a cop, unless you get a ticket or you get robbed,” he said. “It’s always a bad situation.”

Warren County officials introduced the day in 1996, Pace said, to encourage Neighborhood Watch and other community-based organizations “to have cookouts and other family-oriented” activities.

“It encourages people to come out in their neighborhoods and enjoy their neighborhoods,” said Pace.

Warren County deputies will hand out literature about neighborhood watches throughout the day, he said.

Arp said he has won The National Night Out Against Crime participation award each year for his promotional ideas.

Last year, he spent a week in a garbage receptacle at Culkin and Freetown roads.

When he was a Vicksburg police officer and using vacation time for his project, Arp lived on a billboard, in a fountain at Pemberton Square mall, in underground chambers, in a phone booth, in a Bradley armored vehicle, a wrecked car and in an elevated patrol car to promote the event.

“I really enjoy it,” he said.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com