Chief Flynn: Milwaukee has seen "significant reductions in violent crime" with Public Safety Partnership

MILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee Police Department hosted officials from the U.S. Department of Justice, federal law enforcement partners and New Orleans Police Department members on Wednesday, November 29th. It was part of a day-long information-sharing meeting where all parties talked about crime-fighting strategies.

In particular, the parties involved were focused on the National Public Safety Partnership (PSP). Police Chief Ed Flynn said what made Milwaukee's efforts in this program unique was instead of trying to spread it out city-wide, law enforcement in Milwaukee focused on a particular geographic area in the city in terms of violent crime.

"In 2016, in basically nine months, we achieved significant reductions in violent crime in the area that we focused upon, which is in the area of the vicinity of the Center St. Corridor -- which seems to have been an attractive place for criminals to encounter each other and engage in acts of violence against each other," Chief Flynn said.

The chief said in 2016, the Milwaukee Police Department saw a 28 percent reduction in the amount of non-fatal shootings in that focused Center St. Corridor.

When asked about the results of the program in 2017, Chief Flynn indicated the city is seeing progress, however...

"We lost some ground in 2017 because the nature of policing is when you achieve success sometimes in a location, the temptation is to go somewhere else that's having a problem," Flynn said. "You run the risk if you do that a little too soon. The problem you are abating begins to re-emerge. We saw that happen in the first quarter of this year. We were able to return. So we are still significantly below 2015's numbers, but not yet where we were in 2016. So we're making significant progress there."

Officials with the New Orleans Police Department indicated they would take the knowledge they learned in Milwaukee and apply to their crime-fighting strategies down south.