BPD chief: Crime down but street violence, DUIs remain concerns

Posted on February 28, 2017

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington Police Chief Brendan Heffner said the city’s latest crime figures show street violence remains a problem.

There were 39 shootings in the city last year, nine people were shot but none were fatal. Heffner said the city and prosecutors are cracking down on repeat youth offenders who have been tried as adults.

“We’re not trying to put a juvenile away and throw away the key, but sometimes for their own safety and the citizens, when it comes to a point after multiple times, that’s what it comes to,” Heffner told the city council on Monday.

Robberies in the cities rose 43 percent, DUIs were also up sharply, but serious crimes dropped to its lowest level since the city started keeping crime states in the 1980s.

“I thought it we had better communication up and down the chain of command that we would have some better results because we could stay on top of things more,” Heffner said. “We always still have fires to put out, but we could get to them faster.”

Heffner said the department has been phasing new officers into the third shift when most DUIs arrests occur.

“DUIs, they take a while, it takes you a while to get that down to know how to process it,” Heffner said, “It takes you a while to acquire that talent. It doesn’t mean our efforts are any less.”

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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