Police Chief sets safety goals for new year

Police Chief Lawrence Weathers shares his safety expectations for the city this year.

Lexington, Ky (WTVQ): Police Chief Lawrence Weathers shares his safety expectations for the city this year. In 2023, the city saw ‘record’ low numbers for homicides and shootings, this after an all-time ‘high’ in 2022. In 2023, police say last year Lexington saw 25 homicides, and 82 shootings, a decrease from years prior.

“It was an effort with the police department and One Lexington and several other government entities to kind of focus on the theme of prevention, intervention, enforcement and re-entry,” Weathers said.

in 2022, there were 119 shootings and 44 homicides in Lexington.  Weathers says even with lower numbers, the city is still suffering the impacts of 2020.  “Seeing how people were separated, I mean there’s a lot of things that came to the surface that we didn’t pay attention to,” he said. “I’m talking mental illness I’m talking domestic violence that grew out of that.”

And the new year, the city has already proposed its own separate challenges with a couple shootings in the first week. But so far, no reported homicides.  “What we notice it is not about the location, it is more about the people perpetuating these crimes,” Weathers said. “We have to take a real hard serious look at that and society has to be the ones to say were not going to tolerate this.”

Weathers hope for this year is to build back community connections that were lost during the pandemic. “Refocusing and doubling our efforts on community policing. You’re not just there to patrol the streets. You’re there to keep the piece,” he said.

He urges the community to step up, “it’s going to be done by one entity. It’s not something that’s going to be done by city government,” Weathers said. “It’s something that has to be done by all of us.”