The Fresno Police Department has unveiled a new plan to beef up patrols and keep you and your family safe.
In the last 28 days there have been a total of 36 shootings and eight murders in the city of Fresno. Taggers and gang members are responsible for almost all of them.
To combat this violence, Chief Jerry Dyer is implementing a new strategy. Resources are being shifted to put more officers in the most dangerous spots day and night.
“What we want to see is violent crime levels drop dramatically,” said Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.
Wednesday, at the department’s monthly Crime View meeting, Dyer outlined the number of gang shootings the city has seen in the last month.
Northwest: 11
Southeast: 9
Southwest: 9
Northeast: 3
“As crime trends shift from day of week to time of day, we'll shift our resources accordingly,” said Chief Dyer.
Starting Monday, Chief Dyer is putting more cop coverage on the streets, all around the clock. 25 to 30 non-uniformed officers, like detectives, will be deployed in uniform during the day to gang hotspots.
“As summer approaches it's important for us to have gang operations in place and it's important to have a high presence of uniformed officers in the field,” said Chief Dyer.
“I'm all for it, I'm all for it,” said Delores Harvey, a Fresno Resident.
Harvey lives near Dakota and Hughes. Just last week in this area, four people were shot and two of them died. Harvey says the police can only do so much to clean up the streets, it's really the community's responsibilty.
“We just need to get along and stop the violence. What are you fighting for? Fight for jobs. Fight for something worth fighting for,” said Harvey.
The increased officer deployment will not put a huge strain on resources. Each detective will just spend two days of their month on patrol. Chief Dyer says the impact will mostly be at the desk level, meaning detectives will have to put some of their financial crimes and internal affairs cases on the backburner.
