Operation Safer Streets Expanding
Chief Ronal Serpas today announced a major infusion of officers into the police department’s highly successful Operation Safer Streets gang enforcement initiative.
Beginning this Friday, an additional 23 officers will join the Safer Streets program each Friday and Saturday (an increase of more than 180 officers per month). Those officers will receive assignments and direction from Specialized Investigations Division Captain Todd Henry, who will take into account known gang areas, as well as suspected gang-related crime hotspots.
“More Operation Safer Streets officers than ever before will be in neighborhoods from Madison to Antioch to Bordeaux to Bellevue smartly and proactively working to interdict gang and criminal activity,” Chief Serpas said. “Operation Safer Streets has been a tremendous asset since it began on May 19, 2006. This expansion is part of our evolving strategy to reduce crime and keep the criminal element off guard. Although overall crime in 2007 was at a 17-year low, the police department cannot and will not sit on its hands.”
The additional manpower being provided to Safer Streets will bring a suspension to the Mission One program begun in November 2004. Through Mission One, detectives and officers assigned to non-precinct support elements worked one Friday or Saturday a month in patrol responding to calls. The additional manpower on those days gave precinct commanders flexibility to put a handful of officers in non-traditional plainclothes assignments.
“Mission One served a very good purpose over the past three years, but Operation Safer Streets is clearly the program where our attention and energies need to be focused,” Chief Serpas said. “Nashville as a whole is not safe until every community feels safe. This is part of our commitment to continue marching in that direction.”
During calendar year 2007, Operation Safer Streets netted 2,078 arrests, 432 drug seizures, 45 gun confiscations, and the service of 377 outstanding warrants. The arrests encompassed 369 felony and 2,299 misdemeanor charges. An average of 15 to 20 officers, primarily undercover detectives, worked Operation Safer Streets each Friday, Saturday and Sunday last year. Beginning March 7, 40 to 50 officers and supervisors will be part of the initiative each Friday and Saturday, or as intelligence dictates. The Sunday operation will continue with 15 to 20 detectives per day.