NHPD
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Harp: “A calmer, safer city.”
Half as many New Haveners get shot each year as they did a decade ago, and community policing deserves much of the credit, officials declared Thursday with the release of 2016 year-end crime statistics.
They released the statistics at a press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters. at 1 Union Ave.
Homicides dropped from 15 to 13 from the year before. Robberies with firearms dropped 27 percent, overall robberies 17 percent, aggravated assaults 2.8 percent.
Shootings actually inched up from 63 to 67, and shots fired leaped from 105 to 160. But, the police said, the latter statistics may reflect a tripling in the capacity of the computerized ShotSpotter system that tracks shots fired (including those fired by cops at the range). And the number of shootings has steadily declined in town over the past 13 years: The city saw an average of 126 shootings a year from 2003 – 2012; for the last four years the number has remained in the 60s.
Over the past five years (a high point used as a benchmark), the number of annual homicides dropped 61 percent, robberies 48.4 percent, burglaries 40.8 percent, and aggravated assaults 29.1 percent.
Campbell: Community policing “alive and well.”
“Community policing is alive and well in the city of New Haven, and it’s here to stay,” said Interim Police Chief Anthony Campbell. He and Mayor Toni Harp said New Haven has become “a healthier, safer city” thanks to “partnerships” with citizens, clergy, business owners, and other law enforcement agencies.
U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly credited New Haven’s execution of Project Longevity for helping New Haven cut shootings more dramatically than Hartford and Bridgeport did in 2016, even though those cities have the program, too. City, state and federal law enforcement work together in Project Longevity to identify the small number of people responsible for much of the violence in town, and “calls in” gangs or “groups” of them, and offers them a choice between help straightening out their lives, or federal prosecution on charges with stiff prison sentences. Hartford and Bridgeport each had almost twice as many shootings as New Haven last year, she said.
Assistant Chief Achilles Generoso, who oversees the detective bureau, credited an almost-daily meeting that takes place on the police department’s fourth floor for keeping New Haven ahead of the curve. Four mornings a week, city cops meet in the Compstat room with colleagues from the U.S. attorney’s office, the state’s attorney’s office, other federal agencies like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, and West Haven and Hamden police to share intelligence and plot strategy.
Generoso: Other cities come to learn from us.
Over the past year, cops from Gary, Ind.; Birmingham, Ala.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Baltimore, and New York have visited that room to see how New Haven does it, Generoso said. Delegations from Houston and from Portsmouth, Virginia are scheduled to visit in 2017.
“Nowhere in the country is there a collaboration” like New Haven’s, Generoso proclaimed.
New Haven police have in turn learned from the visitors, he said. For instance, they replicated a booklet that Chattanooga presents to individuals who receive one-on-on “call-in”-style visits at home. The booklet includes information on their police record, examples from their intelligence files, a letter from the chief, and surveillance photos, to drive home the choices the individuals face.
“Sixty-seven people being shot in our city is far too many,” Campbell remarked. “One person being shot in our city is far too many.” So police will continue seeking ways to further cut crime, he said.
Generoso said those plans include establishing a “real-time crime center” in a conference room on the third-floor. The department will centralize the intelligence and crime analysis units there, along with equipment that shows camera footage from around town, ShotSpotter reports, and facial-recognition results.
In response to questions from the press, Campbell reaffirmed the department’s “sanctuary city” approach to the immigrant community despite threats by the incoming Trump administration to withhold federal money; and said he hopes to have cops equipped with body cameras by the end of June so the city can qualify for outside government dollars to pay for them. Click on the above video to watch those remarks.