WILMINGTON, DE – Attorney General Matt Denn announced today that he and leaders of the Wilmington Police Department will be holding community meetings next week in the two high-crime areas where the city’s new foot patrol project has been active for the past month. The purpose of the meetings is to give community residents an opportunity to provide feedback to law enforcement as to how the foot patrol project and law enforcement overall can be improved.

Both meetings will occur on Wednesday, April 8th. The first meeting will be at the Hicks Anderson Community Center (501 North Madison Street) at 6:00 p.m., and the second meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul Church (3114 Market Street). These locations are in the areas of Wilmington — West Center City and Northeast — where the foot patrols have been active for the past month because of statistically high violent crime rates in prior months.

The new foot patrols are the result of a grant that the City of Wilmington and Attorney General Denn received from the state’s Neighborhood Building Blocks Fund. Under the grant, six officers patrol high-crime areas of Wilmington on foot from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., seven nights a week. To date, most of the overtime officers have been Wilmington Police Department officers, with New Castle County police officers stepping in on Sunday nights.

“The initial response I have received from residents of Northeast and West Center City on those nights when I have joined the foot patrols has been incredibly positive,” Attorney General Denn said. “But an important part of this process is for us to stay in close touch with the communities that we are trying to protect, and these meetings are designed to help us do that.”

Print