For thousands of people from all around Suffolk, Tuesday night was the biggest block party of the year. At more than 50 different locations around the city — neighborhoods, community centers, businesses and parks — neighbors came out to meet one another, and friends got together in the annual celebration of their shared desire to fight crime in Suffolk.

“It takes a neighborhood.” That was the theme of this year’s National Night Out. And, fittingly, more than 50 different neighborhoods participated in the event in Suffolk. With people celebrating at the same time in so many different parts of the city, the local commemoration of National Night Out truly had the feeling of a 429-square-mile block party. With the exception of the Great Dismal Swamp, there were few areas of Suffolk that didn’t participate in the event somehow, turning the city into one big neighborhood turned out at once to make a statement about the destruction caused by crime.

It’s a simple message: Crime-fighting does not start and end with a city’s police department. Instead, neighbors looking out for one another are the very first line of defense against criminals. And neighborhoods who have come together in a united front against crime make formidable targets for criminals, who usually prefer easy marks.

That’s the basic purpose of National Night Out — bringing neighbors together to form true neighborhoods, instead of just collections of houses around 25-mph streets. In Suffolk on Tuesday, some communities became neighborhoods for the first time in years. Look out, criminals. Suffolk is fighting back. And having a good time in the process.