“Summer statistically is always a higher level of violence throughout not only our city, but every big city across the country.”
Gun violence appears to already be heating up in the Grand Rapids area with three weekend shootings, and the city’s first gunfire death May 23.
“Last year this time we had already had 18 total individuals shot. This year, we have 11 so that's progress. And if you look back to the year before that, by this time in 23 we had already had seven murders by firearms and 27 total people shot so the numbers are trending down which is good to see, but we'd love them to trend down to zero.”
Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom credits the work of police officers focused on taking illegal weapons off the street.
“In the past two years we average probably about 1.5 every single day. We're down to about one a day, maybe slightly less than one a day, that our officers are taking illegally possessed guns off the street so I would like to say that the message is getting out that Grand Rapids is not the place to be illegally carrying a gun, that we are very proactive.”
Heading into the heat of summer, the chief has a message for residents.
“Individuals that are intoxicated make bad decisions. Mixing guns and alcohol or drugs is an extremely dangerous combination so I think a great message would be just leave the guns at home.”
