PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starting this weekend, a "mobile surge team" will be on duty traversing the city to fight crime and respond to large incidents, like car meets and gatherings.
It’s part of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s 100-day action plan to make Philly the safest big city in the United States.
First Deputy Police Commissioner John Stanford says officers will be primarily hitting hotspots they know have violent crime.
“We are a data-driven police department,” Stanford said, “and so the data drives us as to where we go. We have that strategy of where we need to have officers essentially patrol … in some of the areas that we know we've seen a higher number of gun violence, higher number of robberies, higher numbers of shootings, all those different things.”
Stanford says the surge will deploy officers who aren’t normally on patrol, including technical staff, support services, and administrative personnel.
The surge will take place Friday and Saturday nights for the rest of the year.
Stanford says they may adjust this strategy going forward, but it is something that is going to be done “pretty much every weekend throughout the remainder of the year.”