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Credit: LMPD
Louisville Metro Government has updated their online crime map to now show crimes that take place within the city’s parks.
Previously, crimes committed within parks were reported with the location given by GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, however, the crime map accepted only physical address. As a result of this map limitation, crimes in parks were displayed as having occurred in a parking lot at 5th and Liberty streets, the geographic coordinate for “The City of Louisville.”
According to the Metro Government’s news release, this change stems from questions that arose after the recent crimes that started in Waterfront Park and moved into parts of downtown. The city’s maps show Part I FBI crimes — the most serious charges that includes homicides, auto theft, assaults, vandalism and robbery. Although the map now displays crime locations more accurately than they were before upgrade, due to the large area covered by the parks, crimes will show as a single pin at the park’s address. To see all crimes from a given park, users should click on the pin within that park.
The Metro Crime Maps page is here.
An email from LMPD Deputy Chief Yvette Gentry expresses concerns over increasing violent activity around Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville:
Over the past few months, violence has been an issue that has left numerous law abiding citizens victimized, some with moderate to serious injuries.
The kids we are finding involved are as young as 11 years old out without purpose or supervision. Some groups involve upwards of 30 kids that otherwise may be decent but take on the personality and mentality of the leaders that have every intention of taking part in criminal activity.
The major concern is that someone is going to get killed during an incident. That someone could be a very young child that is involved.
This talk of past concern seems to fly in the face of Mayor Greg Fisher and LMPD Chief Steve Conrad’s statements indicating that last Saturday’s violence, now gaining national attention, was an isolated incident. Former legal counsel to LMPD, Attorney Thomas McAdam, suggests that there was even an informal directive to cover up crime in the downtown area – begging the question of whether the 21 crimes reported in the last three months at Waterfront Park could actually be a higher number.
Gentry’s email goes on to detail problematic locations for such activity that include Waterfront Park, the Big Four Bridge, and stretches of several downtown streets including 1st Street, Broadway and Dixie Highway. Gentry warns that the behavior often targets people walking alone or in small groups, TARC passengers and patrons of restaurants and gas stations in problem areas with the violent and destructive behavior peaking between dusk and 1AM, especially on the weekends.