Focus on crime along Jordan River Trail moved the problem elsewhere, police said

SALT LAKE CITY —  The Salt Lake City Police Department’s crackdown on drugs and homelessness near the Jordan River Trail has moved the problems eastward.

These days, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said his department is getting more calls for help from around the Ball Park and Liberty Park neighborhoods.

 

Redd told the Utah Homeless Services Board he doesn’t think the problem is related to homelessness necessarily.  Rather, he said more people are traveling from different areas to get access to drugs.

“I’m not suggesting we don’t have a homelessness problem,” he said, “but I’m suggesting that the drugs are so powerful that they’re bringing people, even that have places to live, down to the streets.”

“That’s why, all of a sudden in the summer, you see more people,” he said. And he expects the problem will get worse.

“We’re going to have more burglaries and thefts, residential thefts potentially,” he said.

The extra patrols and police attention came after Salt Lake City Council members indicated last November that they supported the financial impact of hiring and training more officers specifically for the Jordan River Trail area.

Moving forward from here

Redd said there are several more things that can be done to keep addressing the problems of drugs and crime in Salt Lake City, along the Jordan River Trail and beyond.

“How do we solve this? Well part of it is engagement with other parts of the criminal justice system: with the DAs office, with the courts, with the jail, and with treatment,” he said.

And he said that despite the shift in crime from the Jordan River Trail to the Ballpark Neighborhood and Liberty Park areas, that his department’s crackdown on drugs and homelessness is working.

On April 19, the Salt Lake City Police Department said it had made 33 felony arrests, 49 misdemeanor arrests, and had written 45 citations mostly for drug paraphernalia and trespassing.