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St. Paul leaders speak on recent violence [RAW]
St. Paul law enforcement and community leaders addressed the recent trend of violence seen in the city this fall.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - St. Paul law enforcement and community leaders addressed the recent violence seen in the city this fall.
What they're saying
The news conference began with St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry speaking on the effort to reduce gun violence in the city.
Chief Henry pointed out that the people shot by St. Paul police were armed at the time and were suspects in homicide investigations.
"We don't want people shot in any way in our city," Chief Henry said. "This year we recovered 556 guns in our city, thats 13 guns a week, almost two-a-day. That's a form of prevention, we'll never know exactly how many of those guns recovered have stopped another crime."
Mayor Melvin Carter emphasized the need for community involvement in order to prevent crime, sharing the police non-emergency number, 651-291-1111, and telling the public, "If you see something, say something."
"We've seen, as the chief just described, a significant reduction in shots fired in our city, significant reductions in people injured by gunfire in our city," Mayor Carter said. "We've seen, just this year, as we've created the non-fatal shootings unit in the police department, we've seen our St. Paul police department double their percentage of case clearance rates for non-fatal shootings."
Director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety Brooke Blakey also spoke about the services her department provides.
"We have officers and life coaches that have now done 30-plus custom notifications through the GVI (group violence intervention) model in which we intervene because we know what's happening," Blakey said.
Background
There have been nine homicides in St. Paul since Sept. 15.
There have also been three officer-involved shootings during that same time period.
READ MORE: St. Paul police shooting: BCA identifies man killed, officers involved
Other incidents include a fatal stabbing and crimes that are still being investigated.