Des Moines Police and the capital city’s leaders held a news conference Monday morning, after the city recorded its 15th homicide of the year over the weekend. Mayor Frank Cownie said “Today’s conversation is about violent crime, and violent crime needs to be punished.” The city and private groups are providing additional funding to create an incentive for the public to cooperate with police. Cownie says the ultimate goal is to reduce instances of violent crime.

Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert said the unnamed program will provide police with money to offer to witnesses of violent crimes to testify. Fourteen people, mostly city and county leaders, were involved in today’s news conference. State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad of Des Moines was in attendance and said “no one from the black community” appeared to be invited. Still, Abdul-Samad said he “commends” the project and he plans to get involved with the group. He blames the recent rise in violence, in part, on cuts in funding to “programs that have worked” in the past.

“One of the things I know we did at Urban Dreams in 1999 was a ‘gun trade back’ and we took almost 150 guns off the street,” Abdul-Samad said. “We didn’t continue that in the fashion that we needed to.”

Urban Dreams is a program that aims to help inner city residents of Des Moines. It was founded in 1985 by State Representative Wayne Ford. There were 13 total homicides in Des Moines during all of last year. There have already been 15 in the first five months of this year. The man found dead early Sunday, one of four shooting victims discovered by police, was identified as 19-year-old Ruot Gach of Carroll. No one has been charged in the case. The fatal shooting is the third to happen in recent months in or just outside Des Moines’ Beaverdale neighborhood.

(Radio Iowa)