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Police officers will be assigned walking beats in the city’s four public housing complexes, including Trumbull Gardens, Finch said Tuesday. A shooting at that complex June 11 left eight people wounded and one man dead.
“We have modeled this effort on a program that we did two summers ago … and it was very successful,” Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph L. Gaudett Jr. said. “We’re hopeful that by again implementing this strategy … that we’ll see another successful summer.”
The Bridgeport Police Department also applied for a federal grant to equip officers with body-mounted cameras, according to the mayor’s office.
Also, the city plans to hire 100 new police officers, with 40 in training in the next few months, Finch said.
“We’re putting more cops on the street, and we’re going to have a more diverse police department,” he said.
The mayor’s office said the new seven-days-a-week walking beats will run from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Trumbull Gardens, Charles F. Greene Homes, P.T. Barnum and Marina Village.
“People have called for walking beats, and we hear them,” Gaudett said.
Finch also said the city will expand its Safe Corridors program to enhance safety.
“I want kids and parents to feel safe whether they’re walking down East Main Street or Main Street,” Finch said.
Safe Corridors stations volunteers at key locations and intersections throughout the city. They monitor children as they walk to and from school.
In addition, the city plans to add 10 surveillance cameras around schools near Trumbull Gardens. Security cameras have been invaluable in investigations, said Gaudett.
“We’ve identified suspects and solved crimes using video from businesses, private homes, schools and police department cameras,” he said.
Crime in the city has decreased 30 percent since 2007. Bridgeport has seen the sharpest decline of any city in crime over the last 30 years compared with New Haven, Hartford, Stamford, Worcester, Providence, and Springfield, according to the mayor.
“We’re very proud of the accomplishments we’ve made,” Finch said Tuesday, “but we know we have to go even further.”
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