Global Courant 2023-05-19 19:30:08
The city of Tacoma, Washington, is reporting a decline in homicides, violent crimes and property crimes so far this year, partly attributed to the hiring of more police officers.
Posted data from the Tacoma City Manager’s office earlier this month shows that the number of homicides is down 35% so far in 2023, compared to the same time last year. In addition to violent crimes dropping 19.5%, burglaries are down 52.7% and property crimes are down 27.2%.
Since last May, the Tacoma Police Department has gone from 55 police officers below its ideal headcount to 31. Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards told Fox News Digital that the additional officers “definitely” contributed to the drop in crime.
“You can’t deny that,” Woodards said. “If you go from 55 to 31, that’s 20 more people in the department, so that definitely makes a difference.“
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Stock image of a Tacoma Police vehicle. (Tacoma Police/Facebook)
“We’re still at 13 (homicides), which is way too many, but certainly encouraging numbers,” Tacoma police officer Wendy Haddow told KOMO News. “Officers and detectives are hard at work every day. They are doing the job, the numbers are falling. Are there any concerns? Yes, there are.”
“When you see cops patrolling, I think that deters crime,” Haddow said.
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Skyline of Tacoma, Washington, with Mount Rainier in the background. (Meleah Reardon photography via Getty Images)
Woodards echoed Haddow’s sentiment that there is more work to be done, telling Fox News Digital that she is “cautiously optimistic” that the downward trends will continue.
“While this is good news and we are moving in the right direction, we need to keep our heads together and work,” Woodards said. “We’re still better than where we were before the pandemic, so we’re trying to get back to that.”
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The mayor of Tacoma also said other variables contributed to the reduced crime rate, including more focused “data-driven” policing, crime falling in many areas after peaks last year, more people being out of the home and being vigilant in reporting crime , and strong communication between local government and citizens.
Woodards added that the city is also doing what it can through incentive programs to fill the remaining 31 vacancies and prevent retirements from depleting the force.
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Despite encouraging statements from local officials, the drop in crime statistics provided by the city doesn’t tell the full story, according to the head of the local police union, who says the city is in a “shell game” and there is much more to do.
“We’re comparing this year’s crime to record-breaking years in the past two years, so it seems like a decline, but if we take a step back, that’s not what the community is seeing,” said Henry Betts, president of the Tacoma Police Union. . told Fox & Friends First earlier this week. “Crime is still very high, we still have a lot of cops.”
Betts says the city is “recruiting to replace attrition” and “hasn’t really added more police” when you consider it’s budgeted at 366 police officers today, compared to 400 in 2010, when the Tacoma population was much smaller used to be.
“So we’ve been laid off, we’re still understaffed, the numbers that we’re seeing are falling just come off record-breaking years,” Betts added.
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to [email protected].
