LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Last month, the City of Lexington reported zero homicides. The Lexington Police Department says the last time Lexington didn’t have a homicide in January was in 2007. CivicLex recently reported on more of the city's efforts to curb violence.
Adrian Bryant, who is with CivicLex, says "It could be easy to be cynical and say it's the first month of the year and it's so early in the year, things could get worse. And I suppose that's true — but I think it's always worthwhile to look at the bright spots that we do have."
CivicLex has been following the prevention efforts of ONE Lexington. Right now, they are focusing on "PIER" which stands for Prevention, Intervention, Enforcement, and Re-entry. ONE Lexington presented its plans before city council. They plan to take efforts even further by working to fill service gaps in the community.
Bryant says, "I work in the non-profit space and in governmental spheres and you see a lot of people in non-profits and organizations that do great work kind of in silos and there's other organizations doing similar work and none of them are communicating with each other and if they are, they don't, you know, collaborate their efforts and so I think it's really wise of him to recognize and help the non-profits and the organizations that are doing these things."
LEX 18 did reach out to the Lexington Police Department for comment on January’s homicide numbers. They said no particular strategies, programs, or events can be attributed to it. The city told LEX 18, "We're only one month into 2023. We are fortunate that, so far, we have had no homicides. We work on prevention every day. We know we still have a lot to do."
Bryant says he sees January’s numbers as a positive. He says, “It’s a real sign of hope that the various different strategies people are working on across the city are working... And, you know, I’m sure we'll run into further bumps in the road, but I do think that any — any good sign is worth holding onto.”
ONE Lexington reports that it has held several strategic planning sessions to help with its violence intervention plan.
