LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey used his first news conference after being named permeant chief Wednesday to lay out his plan to tackle violent crime, which, he said, is down in 2024.

Humphrey and other members of the LMPD command staff laid out the numbers at their bi-weekly news conference, a full picture of crime in the city. 

Homicides are up 6.8% year over year, but non-fatal shootings are down 9.7%, and robberies are down 36%. However, the robbery numbers don't include carjackings, LMPD said, of which there have been 70 in 2024.

The data released Wednesday by LMPD also highlights how solving cases continues to be a problem. There have been no arrests made in more than two-thirds of the city's murders and non-fatal shootings. Humphrey said they're trying to be more proactive in their responses to all crime.

"We have to act on intelligence," he said. "If I had intelligence that said somebody was going to be killed at such and such location, we would have hundreds of officers there, right, to make sure that that doesn't happen. But don't think that because you see a visible presence responding to a specific type of incident that that means that we're taking our attention off of the other thing."

LMPD is also cracking down on street racing, making numerous arrests this month and seizing cars used in the street takeovers and racing incidents. Since 2022, LMPD said it's seized more than 120 cars. Just in 2024, 59 cars have been cited or seized, which Humphrey said, is progress in its fight to stop the behavior city-wide.

"Let's not wait until a crime happens and try to clean up the mess or make an arrest afterward," Humphrey said. "If there's a crime that we can interrupt, displace, delay or cut off, let's do that."

Earlier this week, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg suggested "crushing" confiscated vehicles to deter street takeovers. Humphrey said he thinks it's going to take new legislation to do that, and, until then, they aren't tolerating racing.

But homicides are up by 6%.

"Wouldn't it be pretty awesome? Like we could do a press conference and we could pull up all those cars out here and take like a steamroller and roll over a Corvette ..." he said. "... This is dangerous. This is no joke. Like, we're looking at this and you're saying, 'Why are we giving this so much attention?' Because people are getting hurt."

A Louisville teenager was charged this week after participating in a race downtown at 2nd Street and River Road. And LMPD leadership said they're still working on sharing the numerous arrests made from the street takeover outside of Iroquois Park on Labor Day weekend.

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