Cape police chief: City sees drop in violent crime

Violent crime declined by more than 15 percent in Cape Girardeau last year compared to the average for the previous five years, police chief Wes Blair said Monday.

He credited several new crime-fighting initiatives for the downturn.

They include deployment of extra patrols, use of a multiagency street crimes task force, creation of Watch on Wheels, use of body-worn cameras for officers, expansion of the K-9 unit, development of a crisis intervention team and opening of a police substation at Saint Francis Medical Center.

The police department within the next month plans to open a substation in south Cape Girardeau at 402 S. Sprigg St., in the space formerly occupied by the SNAP (Stop Needless Acts of Violence Please) community organization, Blair said.

The Community Counseling Center leases the building and has agreed to provide space there for the new substation, he said.

SNAP founder Felice Patton said her organization will move to office space at 500 S. Frederick St.

Blair said neither the Saint Francis substation, which opened in December in space next to the emergency room, nor the South Sprigg Street substation will operate 24 hours a day.

Officers will use the substations as needed to interview witnesses or write reports, he said.

Since the police station has relocated to a site near Arena Park, the police department has been looking for a location to house a substation on the city's south side.

"We told the community we would have something down there, so we needed to do something, and this opportunity came up," Blair said in advance of Monday night's city council meeting.

As for the crime statistics, Blair cautioned while the percentage drop in violent crimes is good news, the number of incidents in various categories is relatively small.

In 2018, Cape Girardeau experienced 191 violent crimes compared to 225 for the five-year average, Blair told the city council at Monday's study session.

On a year-to-year basis, violent crimes dropped by more than 17 percent from 2017 to 2018,

Violent crimes include homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults that cause serious bodily injuries, Blair said.

The number of violent crimes involving guns rose by nearly 13 percent with 70 experienced in 2018 compared to 62 in the five-year average, he said.

But from 2017 to 2018, the city saw gun crimes drop from 74 to 70 incidents, a 5.4 percent decline.

Property crimes dropped by 14 percent in 2018 compared to the five-year average. The number dropped from 1,799 incidents to 1,536, according to the data presented to the council.

Over the last two years, however, the number has dropped by only six incidents, the data shows.

Cape Girardeau saw a decrease of more than 15 percent in all crimes combined last year compared to the average of the previous five years, Blair told the council.

Crime overall decreased more than 4 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to the police department.

As for the initiatives, Blair said the city last year brought in "directed patrols" to saturate a troublesome area, particularly on nice-weather weekends when there typically is more criminal activity.

In August, Cape Girardeau police rolled out the Watch on Wheels (WOW) program, a crime-watch partnership between the police and the Cape Girardeau County Transit Authority.

While no major crime has been solved as a result of WOW, Blair said he hopes to expand it this year to include the city's public works crews and perhaps local businesses.

Police officers have been using body cameras since last fall. Blair told the council the cameras have already paid dividends in prosecuting criminals.

"The prosecutors can see exactly what we saw," he said.

As for the K-9 unit, it has been expanded from two dogs to four dogs thanks to a fundraising effort.

"We have a dog on every single shift," Blair said before the meeting. He said it allows a dog to be used to detect drugs whenever officers make a vehicle stop and believe there may be narcotics in the car.

"That helps us a whole lot with narcotics arrests," he said.

As for the crisis intervention program, Blair said 75 percent of his officers have been trained in how to better recognize when individuals are going through mental-health crises.

"It reduces our workload of having to go out and deal with the same people over and over again," he said. "We are getting them help sooner."

Blair told the council he was pleased with "the progress" made over the past year in fighting crime.

Ward 4 Councilman Robbie Guard said the crime statistics show "a significant improvement" over the past several years.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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