South Bend Police Department brings back monthly crime stat meetings

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The South Bend Police Department have brought back its monthly crime statistic meeting to help residents in the community be more informed about their neighborhoods.

The aim of these meetings is to showcase various crimes and trends in the different neighborhoods across the city, and community members are encouraged to attend and ask questions.

Before the pandemic hit, these monthly meetings brought in a good turnout from the community. Since bringing back the in-person meetings in February and COVID-19 restrictions have loosened up, officials with the South Bend Police said the turnout hasn’t been what it used to be.

But, they want community members to be engaged and see what’s going on in their own neighborhood and ask questions about how police are responding to disturbances.

During these meetings, Officer James Burns with the South Bend Police Department said they breakdown the different crimes and trends from previous months, like, car thefts, burglaries, and shots fired calls.

Officers said it helps residents stay aware and police interact with the community.

“They can see the different clusters of where these crimes are happening because we do them for different sides of time. And they can say, oh, for the previous months these were like all right here. What kind of trends or why do you think those were occurring. And I’ll do my best to get those answered for them or if they bring up different concerns of what they think may be occurring then I can take that and pass that along to our department,” Burns said.

Everyone is invited to come to the monthly crime stat meeting. The next meeting is on May 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the Auditorium at the South Bend Police Department.