Third quarter crime stats released Tuesday

Posted at: 10/23/2012 8:52 AM | Updated at: 10/23/2012 5:47 PM
By: Christine VanTimmeren | WHEC.com

The City of Rochester has released their crime reports for the third quarter.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that shootings are the biggest third quarter statistics, shootings are up 79% from last year. That's the highest total in 5 years.

Deputy Chief Michael Wood, Rochester Police Department, said, “It’s not okay for people to be shooting each other. No matter what hardships we have out there. It’s just not okay to shoot each other.”

The statistics are out and compared to last year, some of them are staggering.

The Rochester Police Department reported 95 shootings from January to September last year. This year, we’ve had 170 shootings.

Homicides went up 38%, rape up 10% and robbery increased 9.6%.

Chief James Sheppard, Rochester Police Department, said, “For me, this is painful and frustrating because it's very hard for me to accept our young people out there shooting each other.”

Chief Sheppard also put the numbers in perspective. Looking at the last 10 years, 2012 has the third lowest number of homicides, fourth lowest rape numbers and second lowest number of robberies, but either way, there’s still a problem and the Rochester Police Department has a plan to address it.

They are assembling a group of federal, state and local law enforcement to target the groups causing the violence. The chief said they know who these people are, but stopping them from continuing to threaten the community is their prerogative.

Chief Sheppard said, “You will soon hear of initiative where the mayor and I and his staff will be going into the neighborhoods to solicit their insight for input to guide our strategy development.”

The RPD is asking the community to tell police about feuds that they know about in the community. If the police can mediate those feuds before the people turn to guns, that’s half the battle.

To see the full third quarter crime stats report, click here

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