CINCINNATI — After the city of Cincinnati set a record for homicides in 2020, officers with the Cincinnati Police Department have stepped up their efforts and taken more than 600 guns off the streets so far in 2021.
In 2020, 94 people were killed across Cincinnati. In response, CPD officers looked at crime analytics to see which areas were getting the most gun calls from, and they are moving patrols to those areas. So far, this has resulted in a 50% increase in guns taken off the streets compared to this time in 2020.
"When you look at the last four months, we had a tremendous increase in the number of guns we recovered from the streets," Lt. Col. Mike John, CPD's assistant police chief, said. "We noticed as our gun recoveries increase, the numbers of people being shot on the streets was decreasing. Now it's difficult for me to say this caused that, but there's definitely a correlation."
The last few months of 2020 offer some evidence to this claim. From September to December of 2020, CPD officers recovered about five guns per day.
Once the guns are recovered by police, they are test-fired and their ballistics go into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, so they can be used to hopefully solve gun crimes.
"Collecting those shell casings, putting it through NIBIN, getting the matches from guns used in criminal offenses and then focusing our efforts on who does that lead us to, who are these people that are out there causing harm," John said.
