Martinsville police celebrating majors gains in making the city safer

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MARTINSVILLE (WSLS10) - New numbers in the latest report from the state police department's Uniform Crime Reporting Section suggest that the Martinsville Police Department is doing things right and that is what Chief Sean Dunn emphasized Thursday afternoon.

He says that overall, crime in the city was down 18 percent from 2013 to the end of 2015 and so far this year crime is down 54 percent compared to last year.

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He credits a majority of that to people being willing to communicate with the police department and give officers information as soon as crimes happen.

He also said that through that communication, officers have been able to step up their drug enforcement and their enforcement of shoplifting crimes, which has had a huge impact on the overall crime rate in the city.

"2015 was a pretty good year for us. So, for us to be down 54 percent, violent crime, year to date this year compared to last year, it really does speak volumes to our community working with us," said Dunn.

He added that the police department is continuing to do things internally to try to improve the amount of communication it receives from people and through that, hopefully, continue to decrease the overall crime here in the city.