So far this year, homicides have dropped faster in the Eastern and the Western districts than elsewhere in the city.
As of the beginning of this month, homicides were down 37 percent in the Eastern District, from 41 last year to 26 this year, and a stunning 47 percent in the Western District, from 34 to 18. Only the Southeastern District can lay claim to a bigger drop. Like the rest of the city, however, the overall violent crime rate is virtually unchanged in those districts.
Getting the guns
Last year, Mayor Sheila Dixon directed police to find and imprison the city's most violent residents, an effort that emphasized getting guns off the streets and strengthening partnerships with city and federal prosecutors as well as state parole and probation agents and community organizations. Along with a change in philosophy, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III also had to make structural changes within the Police Department.
Bealefeld, who assumed control of the department last July amid an upswing in murders, pulled roughly 250 officers into the VCID. It includes uniformed, plainclothes and undercover officers, as well as members of the regional vehicle task force, the gun trace task force and the drug trafficking team.
A sizable portion of the officers are assigned to the Eastern, Western and Northwestern districts, armed with lists of people with violent criminal histories.
The targets are residents who have been convicted of violent crimes and are out on probation, residents who have been charged with violent crimes but found not guilty, as well as residents who have been homicide suspects but were never charged.
To better coordinate their efforts, Palmere's VCID officers and the patrol officers, led by Col. John Skinner, were placed under a "unified command" in which officials confer regularly on deployment strategies. Barksdale said previous efforts were "fractured," with various units sometimes working within blocks of each other but unaware of each others' presence.
Officials say they are sharing resources more quickly and more effectively, mixing and matching units based on needs. Though the enforcement teams in the three districts largely stay put, every district gets some VCID presence, they said.
"If we see a problem starting to develop, and it's really hitting, we make the call very quickly and move resources literally from all around the city to address that problem," said Skinner.
