It is not summer yet, but as the summer season begins Danville Police are being pro-active in efforts to reduce crime. Acting Police Chief Chris Yates told members of the City Council’s Public Services Committee this week…
“You’re going to see an increase in arrests coming up with some of our details,” said Yates. “And hopefully when you see that you want to bring it back down to a maintenance level. Calls for service are up, and then when you start seeing the pro-active policing go up there will be a spike in arrests. Our goal is not to arrest people. Our goal is to reduce our calls for service,” added Yates. “And then that starts both going down together, and then we hit a maintenance level – and that’s our goal.”
During April Danville Police handled 3,091 calls for service. Chief Yates says he does not get too excited about the numbers though until he can compare them with June and July, and how the numbers compare to last year.
Chief Yates added police are being invited to more and more neighborhood meetings…
“And different people like to say what’s on their agenda, and what they want to talk about,” says Yates. “And we’ll go to the department and say regardless of rank, if you know a lot about gangs I need you to go talk to a group of people. An officer can say it just as well as a sergeant or commander or chief. And we’re really starting to see a big pick-up in guys getting involved in different things. And I think it’s a big-time motivation builder,” added the Acting Chief.
The report released by Yates showed the department arrested 183 adults during April and 17 juveniles.
Chief Yates also said his department is still awaiting word on whether a grant request for body cameras and new cameras for squad cars will be approved.
