SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- Crime is down in South Bend. Thursday morning, city and police leaders held their quarterly public safety update, touting declines in most types of crime.
The South Bend Police Department is reporting that so far this year, there haven't been any murders in the city. Overall, there's been a year-over-year decrease in crime in general, so what's working?
Leaders say it's the adequate staffing levels at the police department, the Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) with its camera network, and social outreach like mobile crisis response teams.
Gun violence incidents are down 25 percent year-over-year; there have been 119 incidents since the start of the year, down from 159 during the same period last year.
There have been six criminally assaulted shooting victims so far this year, down 50 percent year-over-year; there were 12 this time last year.
Of this year's six, none was fatal. More than half appear to be group- or gang-member-involved.
There are no murder victims or investigations so far this year, but there are four death investigations. Those include homicides that wouldn't be considered murders, perhaps a self-defense case, for example.
Fewer guns are being recovered off the streets than before, but as far as ShotSpotter alerts and overall gunfire activity, numbers are also down. There's been a significant decrease in ShotSpotter alerts over the past few years. That was something that surprised Police Chief Scott Ruskowski when looking at the data.
"That amount of decrease is pretty impressive," he said.
And to Mayor Mueller, the staffing levels are one of the biggest factors to thank for the crime reduction.
"If you're looking at how many hours we're able to dedicate to one case now compared to a couple of years ago, or how many more proactive things can we do in our patrol division, and in our strategic focus unit, it's night and day difference," Mueller said.
There have been 2,458 total traffic stops so far this year, an average of 27 per day, down just slightly from last year.