YORK, Pa. — The City of York and its police department spent last year rebounding from a violent 2022.
Captain Daniel Lentz says he’s proud of the work done throughout the city.
Homicides, which hit a record high of 23 in 2022, fell to eight last year. Gun violence is also down across the board.
Lentz says from 2022-2023, the department saw a 75% reduction in firearm-related homicides, a 57% reduction in non-fatal shootings and a 50% reduction just in our shots-fired incidents.
Police credit several initiatives, including the Gun Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy, neighborhood policing and victim crime surveys. Lentz says the surveys help give the department a direction.
"We can't fix things that we don't know are broken, and we're not going to be perfect all the time," he said. "So it's great to take that feedback.”
These efforts have also led to improved community relations.
"Our citizen complaints have been down," Lentz said. "I think this the trust that the community members have in our officers is phenomenal."
There’s also the matter of staffing, with several more rank-and-file cops joining the department.
"We're currently sitting at 108 officers," Lentz said. "Now, that's not our full operational strength right now because we do have people still in the academy or still when field training."
He says the department is getting stronger every day, to be better every day.
"We won't be satisfied until we can make it through a whole year where we don't have anybody that is affected by our gun violence, [or] violence in general," Lentz said.
Looking ahead to 2024, the department plans to continue community policing and add more members to the GVI strategy team.
You can find our full interview with Captain Lentz here: