Will Crime Spike During Summer Months?
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Montgomery city officials are working around the clock to get crime in the city under control following a violent weekend that claimed the lives of five people.
Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. Authorities say it’s a time when crime tends to increase and this weekend, that theory proved true.
“We had four homicides and one death investigation,” said Director of Public Safety Chris Murphy.
20-year-old Deandre Mungro was shot dead Saturday night in the 3000 block of Shenandoah Drive.
Four men were shot Sunday evening in the Smiley Court neighborhood. 18-year-old Rodriquez Smith later died from his injuries.
Soon after, 24-year-old Sanchez Freeman was shot and killed in the 3400 block of Malabar Road.
On Monday, 31-year-old David Lee Hamilton Jr. was stabbed to death in the 4000 block of South Court Street.
Later that night, police responded to a shooting in the 2800 block of Lower Wetumpka Road…where 35 year old Cody Woodruff was pronounced dead.
Montgomery Police Chief Ernest Finley says crime tends to increase during the summer months.
“In an ideal situation, crime is just normal. That’s not the case. We’re going to see those peaks. So we can go back 10-20 years and you’re going to see those peaks.”
He says there’s more opportunity for crime in the summer. Something Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey agrees with.
“School gets out, the heat, people are outside more and tempers flare up.”
Montgomery officials are looking for ways to prevent another spike in violent crime. Bailey says because so many crimes involve young people, it all starts at home.
“That old African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child is so true right now. We can no longer just say well, that’s her problem, let her deal with it. We’ve got to help.”
“There are so many people these days that have so little conflict resolution skills,” Murphy said.
He says it’s difficult to police murders without being creating an overbearing police state.
“Murders are emotional and you can have another couple hundred police officers or whatever else, unless you have a police officer in that driveway, at that time, when your emotions flare and his emotions flare and there’s conflict, it doesn’t matter.”
