good afternoon I'm mayor Tom Barrett and I pleased to be surrounded today by many of our partners who have contributed to the impressive results being announced today uh Chief Flynn will be announce introducing them to you shortly but both our great men and women who work for the police department and our Community Partners have been part of what we consider to be a very very successful period in sustaining the reduction of crime in the city of Milwaukee as a mayor of the city of Milwaukee and I know that Alderman uh Hines Alderman Murphy other Alderman who are interested in this um feel the same way I do Public Safety has been our highest priority that means keeping our citizens safe no other issue has consumed more of my personal time their time and the intention than reducing crime in our neighborhoods and I'm proud to say that in the last two years we have begun to see real progress I'm pleased to report the numbers we're releasing today confirm the downward trend TR in crime and that that trend is continuing in the first 6 months of 2009 we have seen nearly 3,200 fewer Crime Victims in the city than a year ago at this time again 3,200 fewer individuals that are Crime Victims in the city of Milwaukee from just a year ago violent crime is down 15.5% from a year ago and an astonishing 27% since 2007 I applaud Chief Flynn the men and women of the Milwaukee Police Department neighborhood residents Faith leaders and others who are working together in Partnership to make our neighborhood safer and this could not be done if it were not for these Partnerships they are real Partnerships that are growing and getting stronger I'd like to just take a second and share one example of e excellent police work we were on this location earlier this year because on May 7th there was a 12-year-old old girl who was shot she was shot while sitting inside her home on July 1st Milwaukee Police arrested the suspect in the shooting of this 12-year-old girl District 3 officers along with gang unit officers and detectives worked in collaboration to comb the streets until they located the suspect and arrested him you may recall Third District police officers were joined by members of neighborhood organizations and the clergy in in canvasing the area around North 39th Street and West Galina Street to help the police that's the type of partnership we're talking about today that helps us make this a safer City while I'm deeply gratified by the Numbers presented today and stories like the one I just told you I know there is still much work that needs to be done that's why I'm proud to have police chief Flynn who has been very effective as our police chief and I think has done a great job in helping make this city saf so I would like to introduce to you Chief Flynn Chief thank you mayor uh thank you mayor Barrett uh we're also joined today by council president Hines uh Alan Donovan is supposed to be here Alderman Murphy is here jerianne Hamilton from the NAACP is here all of my district captains are here as well as U numerous captains from the criminal investigations Bureau as well as others work concerned about reducing crime fear and disorder in their neighborhoods um we're here for a good news story as mayor Barrett just said the first 6 months of this year we've had nearly 3,200 fewer Crime Victims than we had during the same period last year now I'll give you a brief overview of the good news you've got the data in front of you in the fact sheet that we presented to you before the press conference began and I want to introduce to you some members of the Milwaukee police departments whose efforts have added direct result on the numbers that we're presenting today our theme really today is sustaining progress our goal is to sustain progress not make it a six-month issue or a one-year issue or just a quarterly issue our goal is to sustain progress over time as the mayor indicated violent crime in the first six months of this year is down 15.5% it's down 27% compared to 2007 that's a big deal that's awesome it's a big number robbery is down 7% in the first six months of this year but it's down almost 20% compared to 2007 again sustained progress over time aggravated assault declined by nearly 24% in the first half of this year and dropped by 33% when compared again to 2007 now one reason this is important aggravated assaults are precursors to homicides homicides are frequently highly successful aggravated assaults aggravated assaults are the guns and knife crimes that frequently bedevil our neighborhoods and so when we're able to reduce them by almost a fourth in one year that's a significant impact on the quality of life of threatened neighborhoods I also want to share with you a real world example of some of the work of our officers the work that's behind the low numbers one reason why we have less crime now than we had a year ago where are they don't for you three uh I have with me police officers Don John shot officer Fawn gabrielson and Sergeant Steve Herman now last Wednesday officers shot in Gabriels and saw a car and stopped a car at 37th in Galina now that's an area that's been a hot spot if you look at a density map it's dark blue putting a lot of cops on that do on those dots trying to disrupt the crime in that area so they've been paying a lot of attention when they stopped the car the occupants some of the occupants ran well they stayed there and detained some of the occupants and found out more information and they then checked the yards for the suspect that had run away well Sergeant Steve Herman shows up and says you know this sounds familiar this car sounds like a car that was involved in a shots fired call last night well the three talked a gun was recovered in the yards and the suspect was apprehended now our suspect had been shot the night before and the point is he was out of the hospital with a gun looking for retaliation because our cops were assertive and in the right place at the right time they stopped the next crime so it's very impressive work and it's a it's it's a great example of the kind of insertive intelligent policing that officers are engaged in and I commend the three of them for their fine efforts thank you very much now i fre frequently over the last year some of you can probably give my stump speech talked about the linkages between poverty and crime and that in many neighborhoods it's crime that's causing poverty by driving out and deterring Economic Opportunity and stripping people people of their ability to earn an income two crimes which are kind of bell weathers for us in this regard are burglary and car theft uh those are the crimes although homicide obviously grabs the headlines if your house is burgled or your car is stolen that's the kind of crime that drives you out of the city and we've been making a major effort in both crimes so far this year stolen cars are down 32% compared to the same time last year now last year at the end of the year we thought we'd hit a home run cuz we'd reduce stolen cars by 15% we're down 32% this year and in a city like Milwaukee or too many of our people a stolen car equals a lost job because they're cut off from transportation that car is their lifeline and if we can make a major impact on stolen cars or affecting people's lives now at the end of last year burglary was the only crime that was up I think we closed the books last year at plus 4% at the mid year we were plus 9% so you know learning something from uh from watching the news we clearly spun that number that we were making progress because the rate of increase had decreased well we've stayed on top of that issue we've made a major effort to not only account for our career burglars and to check up on them with probation and parole but again to focus our resources where there are spikes and clusters of burglaries so far this year burglary is down almost 14.5% now you consider how much we were up just one year ago that's an over 20% drop in one year which is very impressive in our business because that is a very difficult crime to interdict um and burglars are tough to find so it's been terrific work uh with CIB and the police districts on that number now we recognize that there has been an increase in homicides U last year at this time we had 33 uh this year we've got 39 every death is important every death is fully investigated and with every death we have a moral obligation to see the justice is done but we do want to make a point that even though it is up 18% this year compared to last year at this time 2009 represents the lowest number of homicides for the the second lowest number of homicides in the first six months in the last 25 years