Agencies join together to help reduce crime

By David Skolnick | June 12, 2012 at 12:03a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County, state and federal law- enforcement agencies are again teaming up with the Youngstown police department with a focus on crime reduction in the city during the warmer months.

The Violence Interruption Patrols program begins today and runs until Sept. 2.

The program, similar to other saturation patrols, is targeting high-crime areas with a focus on gang- related crimes, said Police Chief Rod Foley.

During law-enforcement saturation patrols in 2010 and 2011, 300 handguns were seized, and 36 people were federally indicted, said Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for Ohio’s Northern District.

“We’re committed to making the Mahoning Valley a safer place,” he said.

As law-enforcement officials become more familiar with street-level crime and who causes it, more arrests are being made, Dettelbach said.

Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone praised the city’s police department.

“But over the years, the help [from others in law enforcement] has brought those crime numbers down,” he said. “We can’t do it by ourselves. The cooperation helps reduce crime.”

More than half the homicides in Youngstown in 2011 and so far this year are retaliatory from members of gangs or groups, Foley said.

“We can’t handle a lot of these things by ourselves,” he said. “We’re trying to keep our neighborhoods quieter and safer.”

Part of that includes the newly implemented Community Initiative to Reduce Violence program that gives younger people alternatives to violence.

The murder rate in the city has dropped significantly since the 1990s, but is still too high, Foley said.

“We need to stop the use of firearms to retaliate,” he said.