Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther and top police leaders are again planning a coordinated summer safety campaign with targeted patrols, enforcement and community engagement to prevent violent crime.
On May 28, the last day of class for Columbus City Schools students before summer break, Ginther and police officials outlined their plans in front of a playground in Fairwood Park, near where a man was fatally shot last month.
“Summer in Columbus should mean kids playing outside, family spending time together, parks and pools full, and neighborhoods alive with opportunity, not violence,” Ginther said. “But the city cannot do this alone. Each summer, I ask Columbus parents to know where their kids are and who they’re hanging out with.”
Ginther encouraged parents to implement a curfew in their homes, check their kids’ phones and social media and their possessions.
Overall, gun violence is declining in Columbus and homicides are at a thirty-year low. But Ginther said one homicide is too many and Columbus will not rest until it’s the safest big city in America.
Residents should expect to see an elevated police presence in the community this summer from June 1 through Labor Day. That includes more bike patrols and officers engaging with the community at parks, pools, festivals and entertainment districts, according to the Columbus Division of Police.
“Summer safety and our efforts are not simply about enforcement from the Columbus Division of Police,” said Assistant Chief Greg Bodker. “They’re also about prevention, visibility, accountability and partnership. We know that long-term public safety requires strong relationships between police officers and the communities we serve.”
That’s why, Bodker said, all these programs will include collaboration with community stakeholders.
Bodker pointed to an example: the Next Gen Safety Initiative, a task force within the Division of Police that focuses on identifying the small number of chronic offenders driving a disproportionate amount of violence.
Officers in each of the city’s six patrol zones will institute neighborhood-specific plans this summer to meet their community’s needs, from focusing on street takeovers to homelessness concerns. Officers across the city will prioritize addressing juvenile crime and property crime.
Other police initiatives include adding community response team officers to work with narcotics detectives in the organized crime unit. One of the Division of Police’s focuses this summer will be tackling drug houses that can also be connected to gun violence and human trafficking, said 1st Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts.
Columbus also has programs like the Department of Recreation and Parks’ Reroute program, which intervenes in the lives of young people who have experienced gun violence in their community.
The city is also investing about $7.4 million in grants for nonprofits providing summer youth programming, although the allocation is down from last year.
“As temperatures rise, we know historically that violence can increase,” said 1st Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts. “That is why we are taking a proactive, data-driven and community-centered approach focused on prevention, intervention, enforcement and long-term stability.”
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police to ramp up patrols, outreach this summer
Reporting by Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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