00:00As the country recorded another homicide in Separia overnight, ACP Richard Smith says the overall murder count remains below where
00:08it stood at this time last year, emphasizing a downward trend.
00:13Smith, speaking on TV6's Morning Edition, believes sustained intelligence-led policing is beginning to have an impact.
00:21This morning we have 205 murders we are at this morning. A recent murder in Separia last night brought us
00:28to 205.
00:29Compared to last year, we were 212 or 214 around this time because every day it changes.
00:36So we have to keep updating ourselves with these statistics.
00:39In 2024, we would have been in the range of 300, in the 300 range.
00:44So you see we are actually working in bringing down the amount of murders based on the type of operations
00:49that we are conducting every single day.
00:52Those daily operations extend well beyond patrols.
00:56ACP Smith says they are constantly acting on intelligence to disrupt the illegal drug trade and carrying out targeted exercises
01:05aimed at getting narcotics off the streets before it fuels any further criminal activity.
01:10On a regular basis, we have several large interdiction operations.
01:15We have a large amount of narcotics being seized and a large amount of narcotics being found.
01:20Sometimes we arrest persons.
01:21Sometimes we don't arrest persons based on the information that we receive.
01:24Sometimes we obtain warrants and go into persons' homes and get a large amount of narcotics.
01:30And then we have the hydro narcotics being grown in persons' homes.
01:33So they may have a basement, they may have a room to set aside for that alone.
01:37We have been making several operations on those and having a lot of successes as it relates to these hydro
01:44labs that people have at their homes.
01:46The latest figures also pointed to a reduction in areas that has long concerned many homeowners.
01:55ACP Smith says reports of home invasions have fallen sharply while detection rates continue to improve.
02:02Central Division in 2025 was the main division that was the hotspot.
02:06We had 22 reports in that year in Central Division 2025 and we detected 14 of those.
02:13This year, because of operations that we did earlier, right, we had two men, a father and son, we were
02:21involved in a fatal police shooting with them.
02:23They were one of the key persons in Central Division who were committing these offenses.
02:29Since that, Central Division has gone down significantly and for the year thus far, Central Division has five reports of
02:37demanding money by menaces as compared to 22 last year.
02:41Police are also tracking home invasion offenses under the amended legislation that took effect earlier this year.
02:48While there is no year-on-year comparison available, investigators say they are making progress in identifying those responsible.
02:5662 of those 173 home invasions have been detected.
03:01We are in fact working with the various divisions to at least assist them and identify suspects relating to these
03:11home invasions.
03:12Shala Kisto, TV6 News.
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