ST PAUL, Minn. — Investigators are looking for whoever is responsible for killing a man in St. Paul's north end.
Police say he was found shot in an alley Tuesday night, and so far, there haven't been any arrests.
The man's death marks St. Paul's 40th homicide of 2022 and the 120th in the Twin Cities with just days left before the new year.
While there was a lot of attention on Minneapolis in 2022 and its new Office of Community Safety, it was February this year when St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter appointed Brooke Blakey as director of the city's new Office of Neighborhood Safety.
"The Office of Neighborhood Safety is really tasked with engaging the community in our 'community-first' public safety strategy," Blakey told KARE 11 Wednesday.
She says, so far, the office has worked with existing community partners such as the Community Ambassadors Initiative, 21 Days of Peace, Moms Demand Action, and many others. Blakey says the office also utilized the Citizens League Report prepared by a 48-member commission made up not just of community groups but also religious organizations, police affinity groups, courts and others.
Still, St. Paul hit 40 homicides in 2022.
"It's a scary trend," Blakey said.
So what's the 2023 violence prevention plan?
"Well, the first thing that we really are really going to get back to and engaging in is our 15-person-member Neighborhood Safety Community Council," Blakey said.
It's a smaller version of that 48-member commission the mayor put together this year, she says.
"They are going to develop the annual strategic plan," Blakey said. "The Neighborhood Safety Community Council will also make recommendations for grant-making activities … focusing on gun violence, youth violence, group violence and also looking at our alternative responses and how to support the community responder groups that we have out there."
She says those funding opportunities will come in the first quarter and the first half of the year.
In 2023, the Office of Neighborhood Safety will also continue what is called Project PEACE. It's described as individualized gun violence intervention, connecting individuals to evidence-based programming.
"Then, really working with our strategic partners on, 'How do we evaluate that? How do we get to those numbers? How do we have those key performance indicators so that we can report back to community like, we heard you, this is what you said, these are the action items that have taken place.'"
St. Paul police say of the 40 people killed in 2022, Metro Transit Police are investigating three of their deaths because they occurred at the light rail station downtown.
In Minneapolis, the number of homicide investigations is double that of St. Paul. Minneapolis Police say 80 people were killed in Minneapolis this year. That's a total of 120 people in the Twin Cities.
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