Assault offenses up by 29 percent in Cape Girardeau Police’s 2023 annual review; homicides decrease

The Cape Girardeau Police Department’s 2023 annual review reveals assault offenses are up by 29% from 447 in 2022 to 577 in 2023, while homicides had a 50% decrease from four to two.

Police chief Wes Blair presented the review to Cape Girardeau’s City Council on Monday, June 17. Blair pointed out multiple takeaways from the review for the council. He said while robberies and arsons doubled, the robbery number in 2022 was considered “incredibly low.”

Robberies went from nine in 2022 to 22 in 2023 and arsons went from seven to 14. Receiving stolen property also went up from 16 to 33.

Blair’s attention went to their higher numbers in ShotSpotter data as 159 confirmed shots fired cases went up to 169. In those shots fired cases, 17 subjects were hit in 2022 and 13 subjects were hit in 2023.

Blair noted that many people are not calling to record when there are shots fired.

“We are finding is about 33% of gunfire the ShotSpotter picks up actually has a corresponding 911 call,” he said.

Blair also said their ShotSpotter coverage area has expanded from 2023 year-to-date to 2024 year-to-date.

“While we have a larger coverage area, the number of shots fired being collected by ShotSpotter has actually decreased a little bit (in that time),” Blair said.

Blair also spoke on the success the department has seen with its collaboration with the Community Counseling Center for the mental health Co-Responder Unit. One of the unit’s main goals is to “divert community members from unnecessary emergency room visits and jail,” according to the Police Department’s website.

Blair said from February to December 2023, they had 758 contacts with 305 individuals assisted and 676 additional people impacted.

He said before the program, an officer would spend an average of 63 minutes on a call concerning mental health and now that officer spends 30 minutes.

Blair said as of that day they had 12 open police officer positions, six open jailer positions and five communicator positions. He said the biggest problem when hiring people is “pay.”

He said of the last attending class of the police academy they had three officers participate and only one is still with the department.

“Most of your younger generation that which is who we're recruiting and putting into the academy, they don't really think about retirements, they might think about some insurance to some degree, but pay is what that's what they're looking at,” Blair said.