DETROIT (WWJ) – Detroit will “pass Silicon Valley.”
That’s one of the visions Mayor Mike Duggan spoke of Tuesday night in his 10th State of the City address, which he delivered from the Michigan Central Train Station, a future mobility innovation hub for Ford Motor Co.
While Duggan focused on Detroit’s return to prominence in the auto industry and the electric vehicle revolution, the mayor also harped on the importance of the city’s neighborhoods.
“The most important thing we can do for every neighborhood is to make them safer,” Duggan said, noting shooting statistics have dropped from the “COVID surge peak” – but not fast enough.
In part, that drop can be attributed to a $10,000 raise for Detroit police officers that has already brought back 25 officers who left the department for the suburbs in search of better wages and has 20 more in the process of also coming back.
But as he and other city officials aim to crack down even further on violent crime in the city, Duggan says his administration is rolling out a new community-based approach to preventing crime.
During his address Tuesday night Duggan recalled a community activist’s comment during the Detroit Police Department’s efforts to get ShotSpotter technology in place.
“This ShotSpotter is great, but you need something more. That’s after the gun’s fired. You need me. I’m a ShotStopper,” Duggan said he was told a few years back.
He remembers asking, “is it possible you can get community groups to intervene to be ShotStoppers?”
“We’re going to give it a try,” he said Tuesday. “We’re going to partner with community activist groups with a history of gun violence and we’re going to give them targeted areas.”
Under the program, community groups will be able to put in a bid or proposal to focus on a 3-4 mile area that is particularly hit hard by violence. The group will receive $700,000 over two years to fund efforts to reduce violence in that area, Duggan said during his address.
After the two years are up, Duggan said the groups will be evaluated. If shootings go down, their contract will be renewed and they’ll receive more funding.
“You succeed and you get more funds,” he said.
Duggan said the city would spend up to $10 million on the program.
Duggan believes the targeted approach could be a secret to reducing crime, as “not every neighborhood has a significant violence problem,” but rather a “handful of concentrated areas” that seem to be consistent problems over the last five years.
“What if we took groups that are from that neighborhood? That know the history, that know the families, that know the disputes, know the trauma that folks have lived there? Could they reach out and diffuse some of this? This is what we’re gonna try.” Duggan said.
He admitted he’s not sure whether the innovative program will work, but believes it’s worth the shot.
Duggan said more details on the program will be released on Wednesday as community groups begin submitting proposals.
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