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Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard recently updated City officials on the results of his efforts to quell gun violence. So far, it’s going well:
[P]lease see attached hot spot maps relative to our current task force initiative. We are 14 days into the task force so I conducted an analysis comparing the 14 days prior to launching the task force versus 14 days afterward. City wide we had a 25% reduction in people being hit by gunfire and a 25% reduction in confirmed gun discharges.
The attached maps demonstrate the before and after picture for the combination of murders and gun discharge incidents. The red hot spot areas are gone which is very good news. I would temper the good news however by stating that 14 days is a very small sample size and we need to keep up our efforts.
I also would note that the hot spot maps include all instances where someone was killed, someone was shot, or simply where we had a confirmed gun discharged. This does not include reports of shots being heard with no witness and no physical evidence. We must have had someone who was willing to stat they saw it happen, or we found shell casings, or someone or something was hit, etc. The criteria is identical for both “before” and “after” to ensure apples to apples comparison.
Tell the people how many shots fired calls are coming in where nobody wants to step forward do to getting shot next. The calls are still coming in at just about the same rate as before is what he is not telling you. So don’t let your guard down.
True reports of shots being fired continue and some stories about crimes with guns are not hitting the paper/news.
At least Stettingsgard is doing something to combat the problem. He’s not just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. I like this police chief and I think if anyone can solve our problems its going to be him and his efforts.
What was the tipping point in forming this taskforce? Or was this pure pollitical pressure. One must assume there was a accepted levil met and exceeded.
How long can the city, county and state police pay $$ to keep this going? No one has a pot of money to support this so it could end soon.This needs to be a 24/7/365 effort but once the accepted levil of crime is reached this will be disbanded.
This is a great example of statistics being used for political propaganda purposes…
2 weeks is not a statistically relevant period of time. Why don’t we compare this month with last?
Do you feel safer? If so, Chief Settingsgaard accomplished his mission. Are you safer? What does a 25% reduction mean? One shooting? Remember the first map includes 4th of July revelers that may have fired their guns as celebrations.
Charlie, do you not read: “I would temper the good news however by stating that 14 days is a very small sample size and we need to keep up our efforts.”
Of course… so why publish as if it were HOT NEWS?
“Here, I have some information for you, but it’s not very relevant.”
Click the link on Eye in the Sky’s blog and listen to the COP police scanner for about a week. It will help you figure out just how much crime is going on.
I had it on the other night and my wife said “if you don’t turn that off we’re moving out of this city.”
“We are 14 days into the task force so I conducted an analysis comparing the 14 days prior to launching the task force versus 14 days afterward. City wide we had a 25% reduction in people being hit by gunfire and a 25% reduction in confirmed gun discharges.”
i’m not impressed. the PPD made many well-publicized announcements that they were focusing on certain areas and they were stepping up patrols in those areas to combat all the crime. now all of a sudden crime in those areas goes down and we are suprised? i’m not.
i have an idea – tomorrow have the PPD make many well-publicized announcements that they are ceasing all patrols on the South Side for the next 2 weeks, and (not to anyones suprise) we will see what happens next.
So how is the crime rate outside of the the ‘hotspots’? What about all the other crime issues besides ‘firearm discharges’. The number of break ins and attempted break ins has shot up sharply in my neighborhood, which isn’t a ‘hotspot’. Seems more like a another episode of Wack-a-mole.
As far as the Chief goes… he does a good job with the tools he has at his disposal. The reality is that he does not have nearly the number of officers needed to secure the entire city. It needs to be the entire city. Whack-a-mole is not a solution, it is a band-aid at best. The Chief also seems averse to biting the hand that feeds him. He doesn’t seem capable or willing to step up and say the obvious which is that our police are grossly understaffed.
A word for Montelongo. I keep getting surveyed by your campaign and/or the GOP. I will keep telling them you don’t have my vote. Why? You want to run a campaign that is pro-education, pro-jobs, pro-small business, and supportive of older neighborhoods. You cannot achieve that if the business environment you want to champion is overrun with crime. We are still at the top for crime outside of Chicago. You voted to slash our police department. This has a direct impact on my quality of life as well as that of my neighbors. To be anti-tax as well, because police and schools have to be paid for, makes you look ridiculous and irresponsible.
Mahkno: You are missing the point. The map of violence gives no real information. No numbers. Does green mean one confirmed shot fired? Does red mean 3? And what do the areas mean? Within that entire area there was one shot fired during the entire two weeks? Or are the different kinds of incidents counted separately so that a confirmed gunshot fired, a shooting victim and a fatality count as three separate incidents?
I didn’t miss the point at all. Of course the chart is meaningless, even if there are numbers behind the colors. There are more ‘crimes’ than firing off a gun. So there are fewer gun shots? Do people really feel safer? I don’t.