Bibb County Sheriff addresses recent shootings at news conference

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) –  After six shootings over the weekend and another early this morning in West Macon, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office held a news conference today to address a number of violent crimes that have recently plagued the community.

Although they do have some leads on those cases, they’re hoping to further advance the investigation with new crime data.

With three people dead and several others in the hospital as a result of recent shootings, Sheriff David Davis announced plans to double down on Operation: Neighborhood Redemption.

“The neighborhood redemption program already has several officers assigned to it. We’re going to pull some from other divisions, pull some from other functions,” Davis said.

Investigators are also looking to crime data analysis to help get ahead of the problem.

“What we will do is take UCR data and informed crime reporting data based on offense type and incident type. (Then we’ll) call dispatch brackets to determine unique characteristic for each offense,” said Lt. Jason Batchelor with the crime analysis unit.

Using data, the sheriff’s office has pin pointed the areas, days and times of day that violent crimes have taken place since the first of the year .

“The people in these neighborhoods know this, they’ve called us, they know what they’re dealing with but this area right here is the epicenter of violence in our community,” said Davis.

Out of 195 crimes, they found that Sunday was the day that the vast majority of crimes took place and 124 of those were in West Macon.

“It’s approximately a 5Km square area unique to Pio Nono, Anthony, Montpelier and it did extend to its outer limits around Houston Avenue,” said Batchelor.

Despite the sheriff’s office being short 80 or so officers, Davis says they will work overtime to keep residents safe by targeting the areas that have seen the highest volumes of crime.

Investigations are on-going for those shootings so anyone with information is asked to come forward. Crimestoppers has increased the reward for anonymous tips to help solve homicides to $2,000. The number to call is 1-877-68CRIME.

Sheriff Davis says he is also in support of getting cameras installed by GDOT in certain areas around town, which was an initiative Commissioner Virgil Watkins and others were interested in implementing.