New Chief of RPD vows more transparency as she begins sharing new crime stats

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- What rarely happened before is now going to happen at least four times a year.

Raleigh's new police chief, Stella Patterson, held her first quarterly news conference on Wednesday to share new data and analysis on crime in the city.

"I firmly believe that if the community is aware of our crime challenges, then we can work collaboratively for a targeted response to reduce it," Chief Patterson said. "I want to be clear to those who are listening to me today that we are intent on coming after you if you commit violent crime in our city. We're not tolerant of it. We're not accepting of it."

The challenges include a noticeable rise in homicides, aggravated assaults and car thefts in the third quarter of this year compared to the third quarter of 2020 and even 2019. Among the 12 homicides, however, suspects were arrested in 11 cases. Detectives also confiscated 239 illegal weapons.

"With our homicide numbers, the clearance rate is so high because of community tips have come in and we've come hard after those offenders wherever they might be hiding," the chief said. "My thing is I want to make sure that every member of the public is aware of where there might be crime occurring, where incidents have happened, and then be able to share information with us."

To combat the trends, Patterson announced a commitment to more patrols, more traffic stops and overall more visibility. There remains, however, a challenge familiar to several businesses and industries across the state -- more than 100 open positions within RPD. While the department intensifies its recruiting, the chief called for more investment into security cameras.

"That is a way to help us to have extra eyes out. In our intelligence units, our officers can monitor those cameras so we can have more people looking out for us."