Rounding up Crime in Gulfport

Several people are behind bars tonight as the police department continues to address the criminal subculture in Gulfport. News 25’s Kristen Durand hit the streets with some of those officers as they rounded up some criminals.
The criminal subculture in Gulfport is something Police Chief Leonard Papania has made an effort to address by bringing more attention to the issue, knocking out the violence one criminal at a time. “These aren’t search warrants and actions that are going to lead to big drug investigations. It’s small, street level stuff but unfortunately, that’s where we see the association of violence and that’s where we’re targeting our efforts,” said Chief Papania.
Four teams of about 15 officers from the Gulfport Police Department, Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, the DEA and the Coastal Narcotics Enforcement Team took it to the doorsteps of eight different locations, targeting areas where they’ve seen recent violent crimes. Each one drew a bit of an audience, but it takes those people Chief Papania says to bring justice to these neighborhoods. “I’ll be the first one to say, I don’t think the resolution is locking everybody up but it takes all the stakeholders to get involved and be an active participant in the community to help solve problems so it doesn’t lead to this.”
According to Chief Papania, busts like these are a reason crime in Gulfport has actually decreased from this time last year. “I think we’re down nine percent overall and six percent in violent crime, but still that’s not acceptable. As long as you got one person in the neighborhood concerned about their safety, we’ve got to keep working collectively to solve it.”

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