Omaha police thank community for reducing crime rate

Mayor Jean Stothert said in her State of the City address on Monday that Omaha is a national model, especially when it comes to being a safe city, and that’s thanks in large part to the work of our law enforcement. “All of our crime categories are looking really good this year,” Deputy Chief Scott Gray said. Continuing momentum from 2023, Omaha police were able to successfully make arrests in the first six homicides of the year. “That’s unheard of,” Gray said. “Typically, in most cities, especially our size or larger, it’s 50% or less. So we’re really proud of our clearance rates and homicide clearance rates.” Something Gray said is a testament to her officers, but also their connection with the community. “All of those pieces come together to make sure that these most heinous crimes are solved in a timely manner,” Gray said. That goes hand in hand with the clearance rate for homicides and non-fatal shootings. “Our non-fatal shootings are down quite a bit,” Gray said. “Last year they were down 35%. This year they’re continuing to go down.” Gray said the lower caseload allows investigators to spend more time solving homicides, but technology also plays a role, particularly the NIBIN program, a bullet casing analysis program. “We have one of the best in the country, and that helps us link a lot of incidents together because we collect bullet casings from different incidents throughout the city or even from different parts of the country,” Gray said. Ultimately, Gray said, it’s thanks to community-wide strategies that police have had this success. “A lot of it has to do with leadership and political structure,” Gray said. “Just finding a community representative who can lead a program like ours.” One area that hasn’t seen a positive downward trend, however, is juvenile crime. “We’re seeing more and more individuals, juveniles, being arrested four or more times in a year for a serious crime,” Gray said. “And that’s a lot.” It’s frustrating for both police and community members that these youths aren’t held accountable for the crimes they commit, Gray said. “For some serious crimes like auto theft,” Gray said. “Right now, it’s kind of a catch-and-release system.” A trend Gray doesn’t want to continue. “There needs to be some changes in the juvenile justice system so we don’t let these kids go from auto thefts to shootings and murders,” Gray said. And yet it’s the OPD that other cities flock to for advice. “It seems like every couple of weeks there’s a new city that wants to learn a little bit from us,” Gray said. From Kansas City to New Orleans to Tulsa to Syracuse, New York. “It’s encouraging that people recognize the good work that’s being done here, not just by the police, but hand in hand with the community,” Gray said.