By Ray King
With 18 homicides reported in Pine Bluff so far this year, including three in the past two weeks, Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant was a guest on the Oldies 101.3 morning show Thursday and talked about the department’s success in solving those cases.
Last week, Council member Joni Alexander appeared on the program and said she understood that police had make arrests in 80 percent of the cases, a figure Sergeant said was correct.
Sergeant said in previous years, the rate of making arrests in homicide cases was about 60 percent.
At a meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee Wednesday, Sergeant said some applicants have changed their minds about accepting jobs because of fears of COVID-19 and because of social injustice issues.
Morning show hosts Greg Horne and Will Jenkins have discussed the homicides several times with Horne suggesting that the city should hire a lot more police officers and put them in the city’s hot spots. Horne asked Sergeant if that would help.
