Safe City Initiative Already A Success

Tulsa police are working to make the city a safer place to live. The police department's newest effort to cut down on violent crime is called the Safe City Initiative. It's been in effect for

Wednesday, September 5th 2007, 4:37 pm

By: News On 6

Tulsa police are working to make the city a safer place to live. The police department's newest effort to cut down on violent crime is called the Safe City Initiative. It's been in effect for one week and officers say it's working even better than they'd hoped. News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports in the first week of the Safe City Initiative police have made 32 arrests, 22 of them were for violent crimes.

You might remember Bullet Trap from last spring, that task force targeted violent people, mostly gang members. This plan, Safe City, targets violent areas of town.

Amanda Swigart, an ex-con, was arrested for having nine grams of cocaine in the presence of minors. Jorge Colton, Junior, was arrested after buying 20 Lortab pain killers in a parking lot. Tywan Erby, an ex-con, was arrested for having a gun and pointing it at someone. These were just three arrests made by the officers working Tulsa's Safe City Initiative task force in one night. It's an intelligence driven approach, find the neighborhoods where the most violent crime happens and shut it down.

"Every day, I'm hearing from citizens, by phone, by email, who say this is our problem, help us,â€ said Tulsa Police Major Daryl Webster. â€œCitizens are doing their part; they're keeping their eyes open, now it's up to us to respond."

Safe City was Major Webster's brainchild and was announced last week. He says having the team under one command is more effective than trying to have teams from each division working separately. But as crime changes, so does policing.

"We'll evaluate this every month to see how we need to change it, tweak it,â€ Webster said. â€œWhat we've tried to do is structure something so even if we discontinue the formal approach, the basic concept still remains."

Reducing homicides is tough since there's not one common thread that runs through them, however, police say there are common threads within violent crimes, so you tackle those, you can stop a lot of violence.

"If you arrest dope dealers and people who carry illegal firearms, then you are going to arrest somebody that would've committed a violent crime," said Major Webster.

There is no deadline for the Safe City Initiative. Police expect it to last at least through the end of the year.

Police say a city the size of Tulsa will always have some violent crime, but they say the public's perception of violent crime is worse than the crime itself. They say our violent crime rate is actually down this year and was last year as well.

Watch the video: Week Old Safe City Initiative Already Having Success