San Jose Police Brace For Summer Crime Wave
SAN JOSE (KCBS) -- San Jose police had forty extra officers on duty over the weekend to curb the recent spike of violent crime and they said they are bracing for the summer which historically is a time when violent crime rises along the season's temperatures.
"In the summer, when it's warmer, people go outside and most of the homicides we deal with are outdoors so that's the correlation between the warm weather and violent crime," police spokesman Sgt. Jason Dwyer said.
The past record of violent crime for the summer, however, does not mean the rate will rise for certain this year, Dwyer said.
San Jose Police Brace For Summer Crime Wave
"We still could mitigate that, through not only cooperation with the mayor's gang prevention task force and their prevention and intervention efforts, but our last-ditch enforcement efforts to keep those numbers down," he said.
Last Friday, the department announced the roll out of its 2013 Violent Crime Reduction Plan for the summer and this weekend had forty extra officers on the duty. The Plan will evolve in phases over the summer months, starting this month with 40 to 45 new officers per week.
"We're still going to be doing what we always do: Going out there with a strategic plan, a very methodical approach to targeting known gang neighborhoods and known gang members who are on probation and parole," Dwyer said.
He said that eight of the 25 homicides in San Jose so far this year were traced to gang activities.
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