A.G. Gancarski
The year is barely five months through, and Jacksonville is approaching 70 murders.
After an expensive mayoral campaign where opponents laid the blame for the violence at the feet of Mayor Lenny Curry, the incumbent on Friday announced the latest developments with the city’s Cure Violence program.
When Mayor @lennycurry took the oath of office four years ago, he made a commitment to make Jacksonville a safer city. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to bring proven, crime fighting initiatives here. Here’s an important update about the latest tool that launches tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/0qgH3Y8XRc
— City of Jacksonville (COJ) (@CityofJax) June 7, 2019
After reminding viewers of his “commitment made four years ago … to make Jacksonville a safer city,” the Mayor mentioned his close collaboration with Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and 4th Circuit State Attorney Melissa Nelson.
Cure Violence, according to Curry, “targets violent crimes where they happen in a unique and different way.”
“Violence is a health issue, and the epidemic of violence is preventable,” Curry said.
“Trusted community insiders … who can anticipate where violence may occur,” Curry said, have been in training to be peacemakers.
The $764,000 spend is intended to target hotspots, and as WJXT reported this week, they are already visiting parts of the Northside where shootings happened recently.
Per the Florida Times-Union, the Northwest and Eastside are the next spots, with Curry slated to appear at a launch event on Moncrief Road Saturday morning.
Time will tell if Cure Violence accomplishes what investments in technology so far have not.
At last month’s opening of the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, which will host the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and ShotSpotter (which identifies the “where, what, and when” of gunshots), policy makers struck a balance between promoting the tools and tempering expectations for some immediate turnaround.
State Attorney Nelson noted that Jacksonville’s homicide rate is driven by “a small amount of people who choose to pull the trigger.”
“The four years before we were here, we had over 30 percent increases in violent crimes and murders,” Curry said. “We got into office and began collaborating and investing, and those spikes began to flatline.”
“Slight increases … last year we saw a slight dip, this year we’re up a little bit,” Curry said. “But we’ve stopped the hemorrhaging.”
“This is a long-term investment,” Curry said. “Had we done nothing, had the city continued to do the same thing over and over with its investments, who knows where those spikes would be at this point?”
Curry ran, and won, on public safety platforms twice. The investment is so clear that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, for the first time in years, did not request additional officers in next year’s budget.
However, the payoff has been elusive, thus far.
One comment
Blue
June 12, 2019 at 10:43 pm
So I guess you are only tracking violence by criminals using guns and not knives, bats, etc. Furthermore, you don’t convince me that bangers banging is a health issue except after the fact.
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