South Bend Police Department and Mayor James Mueller explain crime stats
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The South Bend Police Department and Mayor James Mueller took a deep dive into some of the concerns and claims made throughout the first quarter.
One of them being about youth crime in the city. The information provided by Captain Kayla Miller with the Detective Bureau shows there were 10 criminally assaulted shooting victims in the first quarter. Only 2 of them were juveniles, which lays to rest the claims of an unusual spike in youth violence.
Mayor Mueller says looking at the numbers firsthand provides a clear explanation.
"It's something we need to get on top of absolutely we do, but we just want to clarify that this is not something that's worsening. It's something we need to get better, but it's not worsening," said Mayor Mueller.
ABC57 heard those concerns once again after a recent a shots-fired incident two weeks ago at a short-term rental property on the 1400 block of Sunnymede Avenue.
Chief Scott Ruszkowski says SBPD is in contact with short-term rental owners and the community at large.
"We've had meetings for almost 2 years now with owners explaining how bad things can happen."
On Tuesday, ABC57 spoke with Sgt. Bourn about the shots fired incident and shared how rental property owners can protect their home while also making extra income.
One of the newest additions to the police department, the "Drone as First Responder" program or DFR. According to SBPD, the average response time for the DFR is 86 seconds, two minutes faster than patrol officers.
While the average response time is two minutes faster than patrol officers, both Chief Ruszkowski and Assistant Chief Dan Skibins say they've only had the DFR for a month and need to collect more data to see if this is something they want to keep with the department. However, they do have their own drones which are their own tools in their patrol car.
"You can do mental and literal logistical strategies. If there's something happening on Elwood, for example, depending on the location, they can strategize to their approach. If we have indication that the suspect is heading southbound, we know resources would probably be southbound with maybe only one car being northbound incase a U-turn is made," Chief Ruszkowski explained.
"So many variables occur, is it out on another call? Meaning that DFR, we've had that happen a couple times now. They're actually helping the fire department determine where a fire may be located and then we had a domestic violence occurring in the middle of the street about eight blocks away, so you're talking about 30 seconds to respond," he continued.
Chief Ruszkowski also says this new device they're testing does not invade your privacy.
"We are not looking in windows, you can't. It is illegal to go below 100 feet unless you're landing. It's not at anybody's window level. The flight pattern is horizontally fixed. It's going straight ahead," said Ruszkowski.
The next quarterly public safety update will be sometime in July.