DELAWARE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

STATE OF DELAWARE LEGISLATIVE HALL

DOVER, DELAWARE 19901

December 8, 2015

Dennis P. Williams, Mayor

City of Wilmington

Wilmington City Council Members

Louis L. Redding Building

800 North French Street

Wilmington, DE 19801

Dear Mayor Williams and Council Members:

Last year, we were approached by hundreds of Wilmingtonians who believe we all have a

responsibility to address violent crime throughout Delaware. Wilmington has its own

Mayor, City Council, and Police Department, but this does not absolve state legislators of

our duty to our shared constituents who reside in the city.

In response to this situation, we sponsored and the General Assembly passed legislation

that established the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission. With your support,

the governor signed House Joint Resolution 2 and immediately put together a state-

funded commission with representatives from the community, employers and members of

law enforcement which included an appointment of your choosing, Wilmington Police

Chief Bobby Cummings.

On March 31st, the consultants presented their final report to the commission. The report

provides a detailed blueprint for how the department should be structured in order to

maximize its effectiveness. According to the report and the advice of nationally

recognized law enforcement experts, in order for the Wilmington Police Department to

realize the full impact of the commission’s report, these particular recommendations must

be adopted.

1. Deployment: Adopt a metric based deployment strategy, utilizing minimum staffing

levels of 24 officers per shift. Based on the Temple University Hot Spot Analysis,

WPD needs to incorporate the Neighborhood Stabilization Unit: a six-to-seven person

community-oriented unit that would respond to statistically generated crime conditions.

This would resemble Operation Disrupt, but would be stable and targeted, without

relying solely on overtime.

2. Homicide Clearance Rate: Continue working to improve the homicide clearance

rate by supporting a major crimes unit and ensuring it has sufficient staffing, policies

and resources. The unit should participate in joint initiatives with the New Castle

County Police Department and the Delaware State Police, and should investigate

homicides and other violent gun crimes.

3. Develop a Proactive Crime Reduction Strategy: Adopt a comprehensive drug,

gang, and high risk offender reduction strategy. This would include complete

participation in Operation Safe Streets and HIDTA initiatives and continued

development of an intelligence base to support the strategy. This intelligence base

should include a career tract for detectives.

4. Technology: Improve the department’s use of technology to include data acquisition,

GPS monitoring, and an upgrade of the current camera monitoring system.

5. Accountability: Adopt strict internal measures to ensure accountability of individual

officers and management. The consultants have recommended hiring a Deputy of

Operations to satisfy this recommendation.

It has been a full eight months since these recommendations were made, and still large

swaths of the report have not been adopted.

Last week, the Joint Finance Committee renewed its commitment to the City of

Wilmington by providing additional resources to the city to combat violent crime. Those

resources will be used to increase police patrols as recommended by the Attorney

General’s Office. But they also came with conditions that the city must meet, including

working with the consultants that prepared the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies

Commission report.

We share the Joint Finance Committee’s concerns. We as the legislators who represent

the City of Wilmington lobbied and led the charge to create and fund a commission

report to help the city reduce violent crime. Those recommendations have sat on a shelf

for the last eight months, while city officials have called for more funding from the state.

We have an obligation to do everything in our power to help the city we are privileged to

represent, but we also must insist that the city use everything at its disposal to address

this crisis. We believe that temporary actions such as this funding are important, but they

do not provide a durable path forward, such as the one outlined in the Public Safety

Strategies report. To continue to ignore this document, paid for with considerable public

funds, would further imperil the safety of Delawareans, both in Wilmington and outside

the city limits.

We urge you to endorse, adopt and fully implement the Wilmington Public Safety

Strategies Commission’s recommendations – particularly the ones listed above. By

working together to implement these recommendations, we can successfully address our

public safety issues head-on.

We will continue to be Wilmington’s strongest advocates in Dover, and we stand ready to

take positive steps to improve the city we all are proud to represent.

Yours in service,

Charles Potter Jr. Stephanie T. Bolden Helene Keeley

State Representative State Representative State Representative

District 1 District 2 District 3

Gerald L. Brady John L. Mitchell James Johnson

State Representative State Representative State Representative

District 4 District 13 District 16

Harris McDowell Margaret Rose Henry

State Senator State Senator

District 1 District 2