I'm Ken cost and I wanted to address our Mesa Community reference everything that we've been seeing and hearing about and reading about reference teen violence in our community in the East Valley it's good that there's this much attention on teen violence it's important it's important to address it's important for our community to know what's going on and it's important because it changes lives of people forever I want our Mesa residents to know that we're collaborating with our neighboring communities we stand with our neighboring communities and those organizations and we're there for resources when called to our Mesa Community we take violence and violent crimes very very seriously and specifically our teen crime and our young adults those those are very precious people in our community the way that we've always attacked violent crime is a proactive approach a Relentless approach it's an approach with our crime analysts our analysis our intelligence units our officers on the street the beat officers that you see out there every single day our school resource officers in collaboration with our our relationship our great relationship with our Public Schools it's our specialty units like our intelligence units and like our Major Crimes and especially Our Gang units to take an approach that when something is reported we're going to use all of our resources and everything at our disposal and our relationships with our federal partners and every partner that we have to make sure we bring Justice to those who do those kind of actions recently we had a case that was highlighted in the news couple days ago we released information about an arrest that we made on an aggravated assault it occurred back in May of 2023 it was reported to us on January 4th of 2024 I commend the parents and the victim for coming forward and Having the courage to make this report it's folks like that and it's and it's situations like that that is going to help us get a handle on this issue they reported it our patrol officer took the report and immediately it was assigned to our gang unit our gang unit are men and women professionals that are very very good at their job and within days they put a good case together they arrested the primary suspect a juvenile in Gilbert yesterday and he remains in custody at this time that juvenile as you've heard reports does have ties to other cases in neighboring jurisdiction we continue to collaborate with our jurisdictions and share information this case in ASA is still ongoing we still have more to do and we will not stop until we put everybody uh in custody that has had anything to do with this case whether you're an accomplice or whether you're helping him we're going to come for you I have a message to our parents the message is the gratitude for you sitting down and talking to your kids and talking to them and understanding and being engaged in what they're doing and where they're going and to try to express to them how important it is for them to stay away from situations that they feel are getting out of control and how important it is for them to come forward and Report these kind of incidents thank you for doing that and for our teens I know how hard it is it's very very difficult when you're seeing bullying you're seeing violence you're seeing things going on right in front of you and you were surrounded by the pressures of other teens by social media by the things that are going on and I want you to continue to come forward find somebody that you trust a school official a school resource officer a parent come forward and Report the things that you're seeing most of the time those are crimes we will investigate them and we have your back the Mesa police department has your back please continue to come forward be brave and the message to our suspects if you're going to come into our city and you're going to perpetuate these acts of violence and you're going to come in and you're going to be a bully and you're going to assault folks we're going to investigate very thoroughly very quickly and we will take you into custody there's nowhere that you're going to be able to hide and you're not going to get away anybody that has anything to do with it we're coming for you too we're going to hold you accountable and to our incredible Mesa Community continue to collaborate and keep this at the Forefront of your minds we do not solve anything with without the support and the information from our community we stand with the East Valley Cities we stand with the East Valley agencies and to our Mesa Community if you see something please report it I want you to stay safe and thank you