Thursday 6 October 2022 04:58 PM Violent crime plummets in city where Democratic mayor refused to defund the ... trends now
The city once dubbed 'Murdertown USA' has posted major decreases in homicide and violent crime numbers this year as its Democratic mayor went on record refusing to defund the police.
The latest crime statistics to come out of Wilmington, Delaware showed a 44 per cent decrease in murders in 2022 to-date vs last year from 25 to 14, and a 24 per cent decrease in shooting victims from 114 to 87.
A 14 per cent decrease was also posted across all Part 1 felonies which include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and theft, according to the latest Wilmington PD statistics from September 18.
Wilmington mayor Mike Purzycki acknowledged there were some protests against the police department amid calls to defund the police following the death of George Floyd, but said his officers largely enjoy good community support and said he 'wouldn't consider' withdrawing law enforcement funding.
'Across the board we have one of the finest police departments in America, as far as I'm concerned,' the mayor told Fox News Digital.
'People in our community are appreciative of the job police do. Anytime we have police misbehavior, the chief is pretty swift when it comes to weeding those people out.'
Wilmington earned the nickname 'Murdertown USA' in 2014 amid sky-high violence rates which marked it out as one of the most crime-ridden areas of the country, particularly given Delaware's comparatively low crime rate versus other states.
The latest crime statistics to come out of Wilmington, Delaware showed a 44 per cent decrease in murders in 2022 to-date vs last year from 25 to 14, and a 24 per cent decrease in shooting victims from 114 to 87. An 14 per cent decrease was also posted across all Part 1 felonies overall
Wilmington mayor Mike Purzycki acknowledged there were some protests against the police department amid calls to defund the police following the death of George Floyd, but said his officers largely enjoy good community support and said he 'wouldn't consider' withdrawing law enforcement funding
Theories on the driving factors behind Wilmington's historically high crime rates are varied, but many have pointed to considerable poverty levels, as well as its proximity to large cities Baltimore and Philadelphia, both of which are notorious for violent crime but are in different states.
Purzycki said crime took a shark uptick at the end of 2019 and into the pandemic, which he described as 'catastrophic for us and cities across the country because it closed our courts'.
'Judges were loath to put people in prison,' he said, adding that 'the system completely collapsed' before recovering towards the end of 2021 as pandemic restrictions abated and Delaware General Assembly passed a bill increasing bail for some offenses.
The mayor praised the police for the work they have done in Wilmington and also claimed the implementation of an initiative focused on prosecuting perpetrators of gun crimes was instrumental in lowering crime figures.
The encouraging decline in Wilmington's rates of homicide and violent crime comes as retired police chiefs blamed the 'defund the police' campaign for increased crime levels elsewhere across the country.
The movement gained momentum in the wake of the death of George Floyd - a black man who was murdered by a white police officer in May 2020 - and called on city officials to divest funds away from law enforcement and towards alternative forms of social support.
But the campaign brought about dangerous 'ripple effects' across the sector, the former top officers
