MINNEAPOLIS - Inside Sojourner Truth Academy, Minneapolis city leaders announced 2016 crime statistics and a new focus on fighting crime.
Police Chief Janee Harteau revealed that burglaries are at a 36-year low. She added homicides are down year-over-year, but shootings remain a challenge.
"We have shootings where people don't care that cops are right around the corner. We continue to have uncooperative victims who hinder our investigations and prefer street justice," said Chief Harteau.
That's where Minneapolis police officers, like Mike Boelk, come in.
Officer Boelk is part of the "community policing" which, Harteau says, is key to preventing crime and building relationships with kids and community members.
"Nobody is asking officers not to be aggressive on enforcement. Certainly not with repeat and chronic offenders, but we need both. We need relationship building. We need public trust -- because that's how you achieve public safety to the level that you can," said Chief Harteau.
The idea of community policing, Chief Harteau says, comes after doing research and figuring out who are gun violence victims.
She says out of the 344 gunshot wound victims in 2016, 56 percent of those victims have gang association, 62 percent of them live in Minneapolis, and a majority of them are black men between the ages of 18 and 24. Officer Boelk says getting to kids before that age can really make a difference.
"Especially when you get into that 10,11, 12, 13 age. That's the stuff that's going to stick and it's extremely hard to break any of those beliefs or habits that somebody learns at that age. It's extremely hard to break no matter how hard you try," said Officer Boelk.
"Our goal isn't to make a multitude of arrests. Our goal isn't that our crimes will no longer. But, when they do, we have good partners, witnesses and people who are willing to come forward and help resolve issues," said Chief Harteau.
She added the department has put officers through extensive training, including the use of body cameras and de-escalation tactics. She says she plans to add more officers to the department as well. Currently, there are 872 sworn MPD officers. Her goals is to have more than 900 by 2022.