(WWJ) In a story you're hearing first on WWJ Newsradio, Detroit's mayor and the city's top cop are calling on criminals to help reduce crime.
Say what?
Mayor Mike Duggan told WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas that he and Police Chief James Craig have been sitting down and talking over the last couple of weeks, and they're working on a new strategy to fight crime.
Because nothing else seems to be working, they're going to try to talk to those committing crimes in the city in a friendly meeting over pizza.
"They also talk about their aspirations and if they had had a job that was good-paying, you know one young man probably 22 years old said, "I've got two children myself, if I could find a different life that didn't involve shooting in my neighborhood, I want to be part of that,'" Duggan said.
Duggan said they've already started having these conversations and they're going to keep going. The criminals themselves are shockingly receptive to sitting down with the mayor and the chief over a slice, he added.
They're focusing on those with a previous criminal record who are back on the streets.
This comes as headline-making crime seems to be spiking across the city. In the last week alone, a mild-mannered Berkley man was beaten to death after a fender bender on the city's west side. On the same night, three people were injured in a shooting where one man was repeatedly run over. A gas station worker opened fire at a man stealing potato chips and accidentally hit an innocent customer while a few weeks ago, twins upset about the lack of fried mushrooms at a Coney island opened fire and hit an innocent victim.
In other responses, police this week got approval from the City Council, 6-3, the allocation of $4 million for the expansion of a Real Time Crime Center and the development of two "mini" crime monitoring centers. About $2 million of the funds will go toward the 8th and 9th precincts where mini real time crime centers are set to be built, and the other $2 million toward the main Real Time Crime Center inside Public Safety Headquarters downtown.
