Grants to help Erie County, municipal law enforcement combat gun violence with new tools

Law enforcement agencies at the forefront of efforts to combat the rise in gun violence in and around Erie are about to employ some new technology in the fight.

Systems to identify and match recovered shell casings and to pinpoint the location of shootings will be added to the local gun violence reduction arsenal through more than $3 million in state grant funding recently awarded to Erie County, Erie, and Millcreek Township.

The funding through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency's Gun Violence Investigation & Prosecution Grant Program will also allow county and local law enforcement to employ more security cameras and investigators to help probe shootings, identify those involved in shootings or in obtaining guns, and seize weapons off the streets, officials said.

The funding assistance comes as Erie wrapped up another year featuring widespread gun violence and gun-related crimes, and authorities continued to add and expand programs to address the problem.

A snapshot of Erie's gun violence statistics

Erie police investigated 242 reports of shots fired in 2022, down from 245 in 2020 and 311 in 2021. Also down were the number of people reported shot, from 72 in 2021 to 67 last year, according to city police data. Five of the city's homicide victims in 2022 were killed by gunfire.

While the number of reported shootings and people shot dropped, authorities said there was a concerning increase in the number of juveniles charged in shootings and other gun crimes, and a notable rise in the number of juveniles injured or killed by gunfire in the city.

More:Homicides down, but concerns remain high over shootings, juvenile crime spike in Erie

Erie police also reported that the number of guns taken off the streets has more than doubled over the past six years, from 154 in 2017 to 309 in 2022.

The rise in juvenile suspects and victims in city gun crime has led authorities to address the issue through such measures as expanding Erie Police Athletic League programs, reestablishing a Juvenile Crime Unit in the Erie Bureau of Police, and targeting younger people through the Unified Erie anti-violence initiative's call-in programs.

More:Using Erie High as 'call-in' site, Unified Erie focuses anti-violence effort on juveniles

Here's what will be purchased with the grant money

Erie County has for several years worked to tackle gun crime through a multi-agency task force. The group has conducted specialized patrols in high-crime areas, targeted illegal gun possession and seized weapons, and performed straw purchase investigations to find the source of weapons seized on the street from adults and juveniles.

The more than $1 million Erie County is receiving through the PCCD grant will enhance what the Erie Law Enforcement Crime Task Force-Gun Working Group is already doing and will expand its roster of participating agencies, Erie County Chief Detective Mark Schau said. Among those agencies that will now participate is the Erie School District police, he said.

The county is also purchasing a National Integrated Ballistic Information Network system that will enable authorities to quickly evaluate ballistics evidence from shooting scenes and recovered firearms and to enter that information into a database for comparison with other collected evidence. Schau said the focus will be on comparing ballistics evidence collected in Erie County, but the information will be entered into a nationwide database for comparison in other areas.

The NIBIN system, which the county is acquiring with the approval of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will be a regional asset, Schau said.

Erie County additionally plans to use a portion of the grant money to create a business surveillance camera program, where security cameras are purchased and placed on businesses or places of worship in areas with higher crime rates, officials said. One requirement of receiving a camera is allowing the police to review footage if an incident occurs in that area, according to Schau and Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz.

Hirz said local neighborhood watch groups have asked about placing more cameras in their areas, and her office will be getting the word out about the camera program to those groups to get an idea of where the cameras may be needed the most.

"It's a little added layer of security," she said.

The District Attorney's Office has a camera registry program that allows interested individuals and business owners with cameras to register them with Hirz's office, to allow the office to collect any footage related to criminal activity as evidence. Schau said more than 70 registrations have been done so far on the District Attorney's website.

More: Do you have a security camera? Erie County DA wants to know, to help police

Erie police programs get a boost with the grant

The more than $1 million Erie is receiving through the PCCD grant will enable the Erie Bureau of Police to purchase and employ a gunshot detection and location system, Police Chief Dan Spizarny said.

The system the bureau wants to obtain can cover a 6-square-mile area and will be placed at a location based on data identifying an area of the city with the highest call volume of shots-fired reports, Spizarny said. The system is designed to immediately notify the police bureau, emergency dispatch and any officer who has the app of the location of a shooting and the number of shots fired, he said.

"What we find out is that often, not all shootings are called in," Spizarny said.

The grant money will also enable Erie police to assign detectives to follow up on all reported shootings, including those that aren't called in, which will cut overtime costs, Spizarny said. The funds will additionally help cover the cost of new evidence collection equipment for the bureau's Identification Unit, he said.

Millcreek police programs also benefit from the grant

The Millcreek Township Police Department plans to use the more than $560,000 the township is receiving through the PCCD grant to have a dedicated detective assigned to investigate all gun-related crimes in the township, Police Chief Scott Heidt said. The detective will also be the department's liaison to the Erie Law Enforcement Crime Task Force-Gun Working Group, he said.

The grant will additionally enable Millcreek police to put additional officers on the road at selected times to do proactive patrols, according to Heidt.

Millcreek has traditionally put out extra patrols between Memorial Day and Labor Day from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., Deputy Chief Carter Mook said. Heidt said those extra patrols were covered through overtime, and the township department had been looking for other resources to cover the cost.

The grant will allow the department to use extra patrols between 3 p.m. and 3 a.m. from May 1 through Oct. 31, Mook said.

"The idea is to be more proactive with our patrols and put a dent in gun and drug-related crimes," he said.

Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Grants add technology, resources in gun violence fight in Erie County