The Las Cruces Police Department recently began hosting in-person and online forums for the community, giving updates on the status of crime trends in the city.
At the update, Las Cruces Police Department Interim Chief Jeremy Story said addressing crime needs a multi-faceted approach.
“One, we're dealing with crime when it occurs, we still have to deal with the crime that's happening,” he said. “Something we can do to deal with that crime is then use the crime they committed to, maybe spur them into treatment or services. There's a lot of data on the use of things like Suboxone and Methadone that can help people that are dealing with that. You know, ultimately, it's one of the tools we can leverage as officers the same way we do with the criminal charges."
According to the Las Cruces Police Department, property crime in the city rose nearly 71% from 2018 to 2022.
Yvonne Flores, Las Cruces City Councilor for District 6, said that she’s confident in the LCPD, and that it’s important to keep in mind nationwide trends when seeing the rise in crime in the city.
"Generally speaking, I feel very confident that they’re going in the right direction. The City of Las Cruces, the police department, has always been very conscientious about its relations with the people of the city of Las Cruces,” she said. “I think it’s easy to say that the city council or local government isn’t doing its job, but the truth of the matter is that we are in a terrible state throughout the United States, I think throughout the world.”
Chief Story said that meetings with the community are how problems get solved, and that he’s encouraged by the support that he’s received from both residents and elected officials. While crime has risen significantly since 2018, the city saw a small decrease in its 2023 preliminary crime report.
“This is the first decrease we've had in five years, a 5% decrease year to date for all crime. But that's a huge win when the same time last year, I think we were at about a 40% increase over 2021,” Chief Story said. “So it's a drastic difference, but it's not where people want us to be either. So we still have a lot of work to do.”
Ramona Martinez is a Las Cruces resident and practicing attorney within the city. She said she came to the meeting because of concern regarding crime within her own neighborhood, and said that city officials’ dialogue with citizens is a step in the right direction.
“I completely agree what was said tonight, that there’s this effort to combat the issues that are going on. [This] is going to be a community-wide issue, it’s going to take a community-wide effort, and our community leaders need to all work together. And I don't feel that that's been necessarily happening in the past so far. So this gives me positive hope that the police working [in] conjunction with other people will be addressing this problem.”
While the city reported a small decrease in crime, stakeholders hope that their efforts are effective, and with the help of the residents, hope to make more strides in getting back to pre-pandemic numbers.
