Prince George鈥檚 County, Maryland, Police Chief Malik Aziz on Tuesday touted success in the fight against violent crime around the county, and detailed the work being done to make sure crime doesn鈥檛 rise during the summer, as it traditionally does.
At a news conference at police headquarters, Aziz said murders in the county were down around 30% from this time last year. Meanwhile, he said, 828 guns have been recovered, up from 660 at this time in 2021, and gun-related arrests are up 20% from last year.
Carjackings are also up, but Aziz said even that crime is showing steady declines, since a huge number of cars were taken back in January. He also said more of those crimes are leading to arrests.
The summer crime initiative, Aziz said, “will center around reducing violent crime involving firearms,” with focus areas including Langley Park and Lewisdale, Greenbelt and Good Luck, Dodge Park, Branch, and Naylor, Clinton Plaza, Calverton, Old Fort, Hilmar and Walters Lane and areas along the D.C. border.
Increased daily patrols will only be a part of it. 鈥淲e identify the subfocus areas鈥� with real time data, Aziz said; 鈥淲e have a very robust joint analysis intelligence center who feeds us some stats about where we need to be, if we鈥檙e seeing trends or patterns.鈥�
But simply throwing more cops in places where they鈥檙e needed is only the 鈥渧ery basics,” the chief said.
鈥淥ur community engagement teams county-wide will focus extensively on engaging with the residents through community events, community walks and crime prevention,鈥� said Aziz.
He said police will be at events around the county this summer, ranging from standard community meetings to youth sports activities ranging from baseball to basketball to even lacrosse and soccer.
鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 look like crime prevention or crime reduction but yet it is,鈥� Aziz said. “They鈥檙e not traditional. They don鈥檛 look like our normal 鈥業鈥檒l go out and we鈥檒l press a community very hard and put a lot of police in the community in order to drive crime down.鈥欌��
鈥淲hat we did is to blossom our thinking,” he added — “to move our thinking to a more holistic approach to work with all of the other partners in the system and to provide everyone of our resources at hand to the community at which we鈥檙e serving.鈥�
