Doug Arp might have found his coolest stunt yet to promote National Night Out Against Crime.

Tuesday afternoon, in front of about 40 people at the LeTourneau Fire Station on Redbone Road, Arp climbed into a commercial ice vending machine bearing the message, “Put a Chill on Crime.”

Arp’s antics normally signal the start of National Night Out in Vicksburg and Warren County, but this stunt didn’t kick off the annual crime prevention program that encourages neighbors to get out and meet each other. It was to inform people that this year’s program has been moved to Oct. 2.

“We’ve always done this the first week in August, but it’s gotten too hot,” Arp said as he sat in the cooler bundled up in a bomber jacket and gloves. “When I started this 20 years ago it was 93 degrees, but now the heat’s too dangerous for senior citizens and little children, so we’ve moved it to the first Tuesday in October, when it’s cooler.”

He said the state of Texas has moved its National Night Out program to Oct. 2, and the National Association of Town Watch, the organization that created the program, is considering adjusting the observance to when the weather is more moderate.

He said he decided to go ahead with his stunt ahead of the October program to call attention to the time change.

“I had people calling me up wanting to know when we were going to have National Night Out,” he said. “Everyone expects it to be in August. When we decided to move it, I decided to go ahead and do the stunt so people would know about the change of time. If I had waited, folks might have thought we stopped the program.”

In the 20 years he’s promoted National Night Out, Arp, a retired Vicksburg police officer, has done a number of stunts to call attention to the program. He’s spent a week in a dumpster, and over time stayed for a week in a fountain, a hole in the ground, a trash receptacle, swimming pool and a police car suspended 60 feet in the air from a crane.

This year’s stunt might have a shorter duration.

“I’ll probably stay three or four days in here,” he said.

He said community involvement is the key to preventing crime.

“All of you watch shows like CSI, where they find a piece of hair and they can tell a person’s name and address,” he told the crowd of public officials and law enforcement officers gathered at the fire station. “But 99 percent of the crimes are solved by people in the community who see something and call police.

“When I was a child, if I was walking down the street and a neighbor saw me, she’d ask, ‘Douglas, does your mother know you’re out?’ We don’t know our neighbors any more,” Arp said. “We need to look out for our neighbors. The more people you know, the more people can help you.”

The first National Night Out was held in 1984, in which about 400 communities in 23 states participated. According to the National Association of Town Watch, 37 million people in 15,110 communities from all 50 states as well as communities in U.S. territories, Canada and U.S. military bases worldwide, participated in the 2011 National Night Out.