CHARLOTTE — Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Johnny Jennings said more work is to be done in 2021 as the Charlotte City Council makes reducing violent crime a priority in 2021. In 2020, overall crime in Charlotte decreased but violent crime and homicides rose, Jennings told the council.
“The bottom line is there are bad people out there,” Jennings said. “We have violent people that are continuously preying on our public, our citizens.”
According to Jennings, overall crime reduced by 10%. Violent crime increased 16% and the 120 homicides of 2020 were an 18% increase from 2019.
Community safety efforts will change in 2021. The Charlotte City Council is implementing a violence interruption program in the Beatties Ford and LaSalle corridors aimed at preventing crime.
Jennings said CMPD is looking at putting civilians in certain roles to allow officers to transition back to patrol.
In response to questions from Councilman Ed Driggs, Jennings indicated he would like to rely less on the electronic-monitoring program.
“When we created the electronic-monitoring program, I think we’ve kind of gone beyond the scope of what it was intentionally intended for,” he said.
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The Charlotte City Council approved a string of public safety measures Monday night.
The council approved a $200,701 grant provided by the Governor’s Highway Safety Program for CMPD’s DWI Task Force. The grant will fund 25% of the DWI Task Force’s personnel costs for six officers and one sergeant.
The council accepted an additional $25,000 grant from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program. About $17,000 of the grant will be used to purchase radar units and a radar speed sign. The remaining funding will go toward law enforcement, liaison travel and training.
City leaders also approved a $6 million contract with Four Seasons Ford to purchase new CMPD cruisers.
Only one Charlotte City councilman objected to the purchases. Councilman Braxton Winston. Winston said the council should not try to tackle community safety by expanding police funding.
“As we try to transition away from a law enforcement perspective to solutions that are creating community safety, we actually have to do that at some point in time,” he said. “I do not believe more police funding and more equipment is going to be a solution to finding more effective ways of mitigating aspects of community safety. Year after year we spend more and more money on things like this, but we still get the same result.”
Mayor pro tem Julie Eiselt rejected the idea that the grants won’t benefit community safety and said the funding will help reduce things like speeding.
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“I would do anything to get some help with reducing anything that has to do with accidents, traffic violations and speeding,” she said.
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