The Las Cruces Police Department hosted a town hall meeting and talked about crime statistics, policing tactics and more.
The meeting started with LCPD Chief Jeremy Story giving a brief overview of recent crime trends.
Overall, crime in Las Cruces is down with the first double digit drop in at least five years fueled by mostly property crime drops as violent crime was up slightly.
During the presentation, Story likened these drops to coming down off of a mountain.
“The trend has been that over the last three years we have had a reduction. Before that, we had four straight years of significant increases. So we are coming down but we are still significantly higher than I would like to be but we have had three years of decreases and so far year to date through June we are at a 13% decrease in overall crime,” Story said.
After the presentation, the meeting broke out into different tables organized by district with each city council sitting at their own table and the mayor being seated at a city wide table. This differs from previous town halls where the tables were separated by topic.
Story said that meetings like this help create new ideas and formats like this allow residents to get more information during a town hall.
“The traditional town hall where I am up there talking and answering questions that great, but a lot of people don't feel comfortable asking a question in that format so this allows a little bit more cooperation and feedback, back and forth dialogue and having the city councilor there just adds an extra element so its what we can do as a police department, what they do as the elected official and how we can all work together,” Story said.
Juan Garcia, who attended the town hall, said that he found it very informative and thought it ran smoothly. He said that in his group they mostly talked about park safety but he wants to learn more about the crime stats.
“I like the fact that the statistics are going down. That is a good thing. Apparently violent crime is going up so thats not good. One of the big things for me is the unreported crimes. We were talking about it in my group actually because a lot of people say ‘Well they stole my car or whatever and I’m not going to even bother.’ That is the big question. So I hope the citizens don't get wrapped up in what a good thing it is, and I am glad the numbers are going down, but how many unreported crimes are going on” Garcia said.
The next town hall has not yet been scheduled.
