SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – After two violent shootings that stunned the Santa Fe community, one city councilor is asking the public: what should be done about crime in the city? Santa Fe City Councilor Michael Garcia held a town hall Thursday evening to hear what the community had to say.
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On July 25, a 20-year-old Sonic employee was shot in the head while delivering drinks to a car off of Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe. Less than two weeks later, an 83-year-old was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Best Buy off of Zafarano Drive.
“I think now is the time where we begin to coalesce as a community and address these issues and figure out how do we address this and move forward and be a stronger community that is ultimately safer,” Garcia said.
It was standing room only Thursday night at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center as people had a chance to speak out against what they perceived as a wave of violence in a city usually recognized for its safety, history, and culture. “How many folks feel like, I can’t walk out of work because it’s a warzone?” Garcia asked the audience.
Speakers included state and county representatives, as well as the Santa Fe Police Chief—who called for investments in technology like Shot Spotter and license plate readers. However, the real spotlight was on the concerns of residents. “We need city leadership to respond because this is not the good old days, crime has gotten harder, drugs have gotten harder, so we need our policies to get harder to match that,” one person said.
Many concerns included police call response times, where police resources were being concentrated, and repeat offenders cycling through the system. “The failure is the court system. The failure is lack of supervision. The failure is the judges allowing all of this to happen, pretrial services tracking and monitoring the people they’re supposed to be supervising,” said another.
This week, Santa Fe Police released their crime statistics for the year so far and this month; they showed in part that offenses like assault and theft are on the rise, and police response to all crimes has risen more than 12% since last month.
“This is where we need to begin to address it and if just one person is feeling unsafe, that’s one too many,” Garcia said. He says this is just the first of many community discussions he hopes to have to address public safety.