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Cincinnati Police Launching Effort To Reduce Violence

Michael E. Keating
/
WVXU

The number of shootings in Cincinnati has been increasing this year, and now the police department is launching an effort to reduce the violence.  

Starting Sunday, 75 officers will be assigned to a Violent Crime Response (VCR) team.

Interim Police Chief Eliot Isaac and his command staff came up with the idea.

“It’s a short-term effort that we’re employing were we want to take some of our officers and really focus on our hotspot areas, some of the areas where we’ve seen the increase in violence,” Isaac said.  “And really try to knock down some of the increases that we’ve seen this year.”

Isaac said the team will be all over the city.
 
“This is not a haphazard approach,” Isaac said.  “We really want to be focused and really give our  attention to the areas that we see that really need it.”

City Manager Harry Black told the mayor and council members about the team in a memo Thursday.

“The VCR Team will provide focused enforcement using intelligence or data-driven analysis for specific offenders and street segments across Cincinnati,” Black wrote in the memo.  “Specifically, this group will come together and use all the intelligence available to law enforcement and initiate investigations to target those known to be involved in the violence while at the same time seeking to dismantle the larger criminal groups.”

The goal is to reduce homicides, shootings, robberies and violent crime.  

Isaac said it will not reduce officers in the districts.

“We’re not taking anybody from any of our uniform patrol,” Isaac said.  “These are all folks that are either in investigative type assignments or support type of assignments, just to really add that extra manpower we think we need right now.”

The team will work from 11 a.m. until midnight.

Jay Hanselman brings more than 10 years experience as a news anchor and reporter to 91.7 WVXU. He came to WVXU from WNKU, where he hosted the local broadcast of All Things Considered. Hanselman has been recognized for his reporting by the Kentucky AP Broadcasters Association, the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, and the Ohio AP Broadcasters.