Mayor Mobolade addresses rise in homicides after shooting

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — In the wake of another deadly shooting on Wednesday, Aug. 14, the 27th homicide in the city this year, Mayor Yemi Mobolade spoke on the crime trends and what it means for the city.

On Wednesday, four people were shot on the east side of the city, leaving three of them injured and one dead. Police responded around 5:30 p.m. to a neighborhood west of Airport Road and South Powers Boulevard. One person died on the scene and three were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

“Right now, we’re at 27, in terms of the number of homicides, and at this time last year we were at 18. So that’s not good news,” said Mayor Mobolade. “We’re seeing a trend. We’re seeing an upward tick, an upward trend. None of these incidents are related, so they are all isolated incidents. They are crimes of passion in the heat of the moment. One of the things that as a city we’re trying to do is monitor what the trends are so we can try to get ahead of it.”

Mayor Mobolade said the focus should not be on the crimes themselves, as police officers can’t be everywhere as the crimes are happening. Instead, Mobolade said the focus must be on the health and wellbeing of the community.

“As Mayor, when you hear me say, ‘I want to focus on upstream solutions, and on mental health, and on providing opportunities,’ that’s to prevent some of those crimes,” Mobolade said. “So, it’s a two-pronged approach–our ability to respond to crime, when you call 911, but also, at some point we must get ahead of some of the issues of why our residents are committing crimes.”

The Mayor expressed his condolences to the family of the person who was killed, and said the phone call informing him of the shooting broke his heart.

“Losing a loved one, no matter what the situation is, is really hard,” Mobolade said.

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