Detroit Police: No Reported Killings In 36 Hours

By COREY WILLIAMS
Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) - Detroit has a day-and-a-half streak of no reported homicides or non-fatal shootings, police said Tuesday.

The streak started at midnight Monday morning and as of 5:15 p.m. Tuesday was intact.

" ... For the first time in months the city of Detroit has seen its longest period of non-violence," the department said in a release.

Just weeks ago, three men were shot and killed and six others wounded in a rear gambling room of an east side Detroit barbershop. A witness told police that the shooter pulled into a rear alley and fired shots into an open rear door of the barbershop on Nov. 6.

The following day, a 23-year-old pregnant woman and a 25-year-old man were shot to death, and a 75-year-old man was critically wounded outside a Detroit home. The dead woman's baby was delivered by cesarean section, but later died.

Detroit has one of the highest murder and violent crime rates in the country. But the city's 308 homicides so far this year are 46 fewer than at the same time in 2012, the department said. The 1,084 non-fatal shootings also are down by 66 over last year.

A more intense focus on fighting crime at the street level has been in place since new Chief James Craig was hired in May. Craig's police career started in Detroit in 1977. He later served in Los Angeles; Portland, Maine; and Cincinnati, where he had been police chief since 2011.

"As Chief Craig has said on many occasions, one homicide is way too many," police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woody said. "These particular stats are directly correlated to how people are responding to their new police department."

Craig named a new assistant chief in September and revamped the department's command staff.

Several specialized units also have been implemented over the past few months, including the Gang Intelligence Surveillance Transit, Vice Squad and a 24-hour detective desk.

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