arrested and charged<\/a> in connection with Colon’s death.<\/p>\nThis year\u2019s homicide count now matches last year\u2019s total, which Allentown officials in January touted as a \u201chistoric\u201d low.<\/p>\n
Statistics presented Thursday by city officials reported six homicides in 2024, including two that were deemed negligent manslaughter.<\/p>\n
‘We know it’s safer’: Mayor<\/p>\n
Tuerk pointed to a slew of positive statistics as he said \u201cviolent crime is down\u201d and asked residents to acknowledge the \u201crecency bias\u201d caused by Colon\u2019s death the night before.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllentown is a safe city,\u201d Tuerk said Thursday, touting a decrease in aggravated assaults and other crimes when compared with an average of reports from 2022-24.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the crime statistics indicate that Allentown is safer than many other cities around the Commonwealth. And we know it’s safer because we’ve seen the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Matt Tuerk<\/p>\n
He asked residents to acknowledge the \u201crecency bias\u201d caused by Wednesday\u2019s homicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the crime statistics indicate that Allentown is safer than many other cities around the commonwealth,\u201d Tuerk said. \u201cAnd we know it’s safer because we’ve seen the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called Thursday\u2019s conference \u201can opportunity for the city of Allentown and the Allentown Police Department to help our residents understand exactly where we stand as a city\u201d in terms of crime and safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re not here to brag,” Tuerk said. “This is not to talk about the successes that we’ve had in reducing crime in the city of Allentown.”<\/p>\n
The city’s year-to-date statistics for 2025 show several crime categories on the rise compared with recent years: forcible rape, sodomy and sexual assault; counterfeiting and forgery; property thefts; and drug and narcotics offenses. <\/p>\n
‘People-driven work’<\/p>\n
Roca credited technology for helping officers quickly arrest two suspects after Wednesday\u2019s homicide in Center City Allentown.<\/p>\n
Surveillance cameras and gunshot detectors from Flock Safety were instrumental in that arrest and many others since their installation in January 2024, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe right technology in the hands of motivated and highly professional police officers \u2026 solves crime.”<\/p>\n
Police Chief Charles Roca<\/p>\n
\u201cThe right technology in the hands of motivated and highly professional police officers \u2026 solves crime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The city is working to better attract and retain officers at Allentown Police Department, Tuerk said. <\/p>\n
He said a team of workers recently attended a weeklong session at Harvard University on talent management and diversifying a workforce. <\/p>\n
The mayor said he does not plan to expand the police department in his upcoming budget proposal, but said officials must work to fill open positions and replace upcoming retirees.<\/p>\n
Public safety \u201cis people-driven work,\u201d Tuerk said. \u201cAll the technology that we invest in, none of it works if we don\u2019t have great people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Hours after officials announced Allentown\u2019s fourth homicide of the year, Mayor Matt Tuerk and Police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,15046,121,2277,6295,120,715],"class_list":{"0":"post-22472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-crime-statistics","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-homicide","12":"tag-allentown-mayor-matt-tuerk","13":"tag-allentown-news","14":"tag-allentown-police"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}