Wilmington police chief talks about crime in 2015

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Violent gang and drug related crimes in Wilmington continue to make headlines, but according to Police Chief Ralph Evangelous the cycle can only be broken if everyone works together to protect the city.

“Our homicides or murders, hopefully we’ll end up at 12, which is still too many,” said Evangelous.

That’s down from 15 in 2014 and 14 in 2013. But nine of those murders were committed with firearms, many of them stolen.

“We have seized well over 30 guns, 35 guns just in the month of December,” Evangelous said.

Since October, over 100 stolen guns have been taken off the streets.

“We are arresting these people. And when we see lulls out there when the violence has gone down it’s because they’ve been incarcerated. When they get released, we can go to the bank that there’s going to be an increase in violence when they’re released out of jail and prison,” said Evangelous.

He said the pre and post release ankle bracelet programs are not working.

“It’s causing double the work for police agencies, and for us specifically,” said Evangelous.

The chief said that cooperation is going to be the key to putting an end to the cycle of violent crimes.

“My hope and prayer for 2016 is the rest of the justice system will step up and give sentences out that meet the criteria for the crime and stop putting them back into society to re-victimize our citizens,” said Evangelous.

He said that WPD has had a lot of luck getting information through Text-a-Tip lately, specifically in regards to the Castle Street murder earlier this month. He said he hopes that is a trend that continues into the new year.