By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Providence officials displayed 20 illegal handguns seized this summer, and said violent incidents involving guns are down, while seizures of illegal guns, including untraceable ghost guns are up so far in 2022. Officials also singled out an eight-year veteran police officer for making 31 gun-related arrests so far this year.
“The message for today, more than anything else, is celebrating and appreciating the amazing work that our police officer and police department does every day to fight crime and to keep us safe,” said Mayor Jorge Elorza at a noon-hour news conference in the Providence Public Safety complex, where 20 handguns were laid out on a table, including a stand-out pink, nine millimeter handgun manufactured by SCCY Firearms.
“We had two more last night, two gun arrests last night,” Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements said. He praised Sergeant Brian Murphy, an eight-year veteran officer assigned to South Providence, for 31 gun-related arrests so far in 2022.
“These guns, there’s no doubt in our minds, they would have been used in a crime,” said Elorza. “There is no doubt that people are safer, and I think we can even say probably alive because these guns are off the streets.”
Chief Clements said officers develop an instinct for spotting gun-carrying suspects.
“They know when they pull up who is possessing a firearm, by their mannerisms, by their wide eyes, by the way they shield their body, by the way they’re gripping and clutching at their waistband, consciously or unconsciously,” Clements said.
“These are not easy arrests. There are foot chases, there are struggles, resisting arrest with somebody with a firearm in their hand, prone to use it,” Clements said.
Police and the mayor’s office distributed tables indicating that from the start of the year, there were 25 shooting incidents involving 31 victims and five homicides through August 25, compared with 39 incidents involving 55 victims and 17 homicides in a similar period in 2021.
From 2017 when there were 319 violent crime incidents through the end of August, that number fell steadily to 256 in 2021, and 176 so far in 2022, according to city-supplied statistics.
Elorza also announced that a pilot program utilizing 25 Flock Safety Systems license plate reading cameras to photograph all vehicles on certain streets will begin on Thursday, September 1. Police in neighboring Cranston have made extensive use of the Flock cameras, in some cases trading information with Providence Police.
