Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and Mayor Cavalier Johnson held a news conference on Tuesday, July 5, to discuss crime in the first 6 months of the year. They were looking at the dates of January 1 to June 30. The chief stated there has been an improvement in Part 1 crimes reduction. An eight percent decrease in violent crimes and an eight percent decrease in property crimes. Auto thefts decreased by 4 percent, but we still have challenges with homicides and non-fatal shootings. Operation Summer Guardian started July 1 to deal with the issues of firearms in the city. This is a response in real time to shots being fired when located by the shot spotter technology that the department has.
More people are being shot with less incidents and there is poor conflict resolution that leads to a lot of this. People are using firearms to settle minor disputes. Not storing firearms safely has led to several children being accidently shot the past few weeks. There are free gun locks that are being given out to safely have a firearm inside of your home. Clearance rates for crimes are improving including homicides 55%, Robberies 28%, and improvement in auto thefts from 2% to 4%. Crash data and hit and run is also going down. The chief states the traffic safety unit has influenced this data.” Collaborating with the community partners is extremely helpful because the police cannot do this by themselves,” the chief states. Since we started the towing of vehicles on May 1 there have been fifty-two tows so far. We rather not tow but if you violate the law that is an option for us.
The chief “states we still have lots of work to do with homicides and non-fatal shootings, but we are going in the right direction.” “We are still asking the community to help us we are all in this together.” The mayor stated he is still alarmed by the number of homicides in the city. He is personally notified about each homicide. He continues “the police play a critical role with safety in the city, and he supports them.” There are to many people in this city who should not have guns in their hands. We need better background checks. “Every time a gun is transferred from person to person there should be a background check. Of course, the city cannot do anything about this it would have to come from the state or federal government. There are reasons to be hopeful in the first 6 months of the year, but we still have lots of work to do. Reckless driving is going in the right direction. “We need everyone in the game and step up, we all have a role to play.”
There have been improvements, but we still have a long way to go. Let the chief know if you have any suggestions that you think would be helpful.
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