Mayor Adrian Perkins: Working together, we can continue to move Shreveport Forward
This is part one of a three-part series on crime response, intervention and prevention.
Unsurprisingly, I am often asked, “what are you all doing about crime” or “what are we going to do about crime?”
The latter is a much more productive point of view because we must work together and have short intermediate and long-term plans to get the best results. Talking about what government is doing, and what citizens can do, is important because it lets the citizens who are proactively keeping their homes and neighborhoods safe know they aren’t alone.
Our country and city just experienced two of the deadliest years of gun violence in history. The good news is that the declining crime numbers let us know that our strategy is working. Our “Response” is how we immediately react to crimes being committed to prevent further loss of life or to deter further violence. In response to the pandemic-initiated violent years, I’ll first discuss the investments we’ve made in our officers and technology.
2019 was one of Shreveport’s safest years in decades, but, sadly, the pandemic robbed us of that security and so much more. My first year in office, major crime (Part 1) was down 7 percent, and homicides were down 29 percent, making Shreveport the safest it had been in 40 years. As we witnessed nationwide, crime spiked during the pandemic, and we lost 91 souls in 2021 to gun violence. 91 isn’t just a number. Take it from someone who goes to crime scenes; makes phone calls to, visits with, and prays for devastated families; attends funerals, vigils, balloon releases; and lives with the burden of a city’s safety on his shoulders, that those numbers are family members, friends, and fellow citizens. Those numbers represent valuable and precious life.
We addressed the crime crisis with deliberate investments that are paying off. First and foremost, we invested in our first responders and their families by giving officers who are serving below the rank of captain, a 6 percent raise in 2021 and a 15 percent raise in 2022. Investments that will help retain and recruit to achieve our goal of having 120 new officers within the next 18 months. Our tech investments have also been beneficial, starting with the tablets officers have in the field that let them apply for warrants and conduct other administrative functions that would have previously taken them off the streets. In partnership with the business community, we purchased body cameras for every officer to further protect them and the citizens they engage. Technology is also improving policing through our Real Time Crime Center that was set up faster and more affordably than any other municipality and already has access to 494 camera feeds.
I will be the first to say that we aren’t where we need to be, but in acknowledging that shortfall, I must acknowledge our success as well. The pandemic stopped our quarterly in-person meetings with our local state and federal partners. Nationwide, including in Shreveport, first responder recruitment and retention also suffered. We responded to these challenges by raising pay for officers to help recruitment, standing up the Violent Crime Abatement Team to get guns off our streets, and reestablishing the Community Response Unit to develop and implement strategies that will proactively address crime. To create even stronger bonds amongst our partners, we secured the Department of Justice’s Public Safety Partnership grant worth $800,000 and imbedded investigations at the North Louisiana Crime Lab where they have direct access to state-of-the-art equipment. We are also working to reinitiate those quarterly law enforcement meetings.
We are seeing the benefit of our actions, but as a community, we must do more. *To date we are seeing a 26 percent drop in homicides, 11 percent drop in violent crimes, and 7 percent decrease in overall crime from 2021. **We have closed out 19 homicides out of the 31 we have suffered, giving us a 61 percent close-out rate, well above the national average. Still, we understand those that don’t feel safe because they hear gunshots outside of their window or have been in the vicinity of violent crimes. Compared to 2019 and our values, we know we can do better.
To continue to improve our numbers and make our city safer, we need community involvement. For those who ask, this is what you can do: Continue to trust and assist SPD by reporting potential crimes or crimes in real-time. Crime Stoppers can assist in this area, and we are adding Text Connect, a new program where you can text tips to SPD, and your phone number is scrambled to keep your identity safe. Parents and guardians can greatly assist by watching your teens, a demographic we are seeing more involved in violent crimes, and volunteering to become mentors, tutors, and sports team coaches for other children. Lastly, it is critical that we get more citizens to sign up or encourage and support others to be first responders. Neither SPD nor I can put on capes to stop adults from shooting one another for cutting in line at a convenience store, teens from conducting rolling gun battles in broad daylight, or crimes that are domestic in nature taking place within homes between family and friends, which accounted for 348 calls for service in 2021. We need every citizen right alongside us in this fight so that everyone feels safer.
We have suffered as a community for many reasons out of our control but cannot accept the level of violence that we have seen. I can’t emphasize how hard the last two years have been, on all of us, with the pandemic, economic crisis, and violence. However, this administration has in place investments and policies that are pulling Shreveport out of the national crime trend. We must keep our attention squarely on the real enemy, those terrorizing our streets and the conditions that put them there. In working together, we can and will continue moving Shreveport forward.
*As of May 31, 2022
**As of June 20, 2022
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Mayor Adrian Perkins: Working together, we can continue to move Shreveport Forward
