Worried about rising levels of crime in his city, Davenport Mayor Mike Matson on Tuesday announced the formation of a new Violent Crime Community Task Force.
Last year, the city reached an all-time high for the number of shots fired incidents and non-fatal shootings. And the violence seems to be continuing this year.
The task force will include members from several community organizations including NAACP, LULAC, the Davenport schools, Vera French Mental Health Services, Genesis Health Systems, Saint Ambrose University, and the Quad Cities Chamber.
In making his announcement, Mayor Matson said, "for far too long, our community has placed the sole burden of preventing crime on our police department. While law enforcement is certainly a piece of dealing with rising levels of crime, they are not, and cannot be, the only people we look to for answers when dealing with crime in our community.”
Police Chief Paul Sikorski blames much of the violence on street gangs continually retaliating against one another. And he says the gangs are mostly made up of minority young people, making these young people the main victims, and the main perpetrators, of the city's gun violence.