MADISON, Wis. – Madison police Chief Mike Koval said Friday recent statistics showing increased rates of gun violence in the city are alarming and called for more community participation in helping to solve the issue.
In a blog post Thursday reflecting on his 30-plus years at the department and the changes he’s seen during that time, Koval said shots-fired calls through March are up 300 percent compared to the same time period in 2016.
“When I was a rookie cop, the ‘alert’ tone resounding across all of our police channels signaling an incident-in-progress involving a weapon would have my heart racing!” the post reads. “In a six day rotation (same as today), I recalled hearing that toned-out alert perhaps 2-3 times; now it can happen that many times (or more) in a single 8-hour shift.”
In an interview with News 3 Friday, Koval said the continued rise of gun violence in the city is cause for major concern.
“It continues to peak our resources and our concerns,” Koval said. “Clearly, the prevalence of guns and people that are more inclined to solve conflicts with weapons or guns is very disturbing on so many levels for our society.”
The chief said gun violence isn’t affecting one particular part of Madison over another; it’s a citywide problem.
Koval said the prevalence of shots-fired calls is something he hoped would have improved by now.
“I thought that at some point we would raise our collective consciousness and as a community sort of draw a…proverbial line in the sand and say no more,” he said.
But the calls keep on coming. Koval said gun violence is an issue in the city that may well end up getting worse before it gets any better.
“I think it’s to the extent where we are going to have to see, unfortunately, that innocent third-party victim that had nothing to do with this conflict,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I’m concerned, I’m getting a little more cynical that it might take something like that.”
Koval said he and his officers cannot tackle the issue alone. He said solutions to the problem will have to come from the wider community as well.
“We have to have an institutional response in the terms of our churches, our schools, our community leaders, our government and elected officials, our social service agencies, our moms,” Koval said.
Koval said while gun violence is often blamed on a “Chicago element,” it is very much a Madison-based issue.
“To some extent, we have seen imported talent for this, but we would be remiss if we didn’t say a lot of our conflicts are homegrown,” Koval said.
