Milwaukee police are stepping their efforts to combat gun violence. Jim Harpole is assistant chief with the Milwaukee Police Department, which is stepping up patrol activities in a direct response to an increase in shootings this summer, in three of the department’s seven districts. “We really came to the understanding that some areas of our north side police districts were really in much greater need of additional police attention due to the level of gun violence that we were seeing,” said Harpole. Milwaukee has seen shootings increase by 59% this year compared with 2010, including 178 shootings this summer.
Harpole said crime data will allow the department to put extra officers in areas that have seen an increase in gun crimes and drug dealing this summer — with the goal of making neighborhoods safer. “We are constantly paying attention to our data on a daily basis,” he said. “We’re always shifting and monitoring our resources to address those crime issues as they arise. We look at the data right down to the block level, in fact right to the parcel level.”
