Mayor talks crime at UC

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory's on-going dialog about crime -- specifically how to reduce the amount of violent crime in the city -- continued Monday night when he met with about 35 people at the University of Cincinnati.

The group included professional facilitators from UC's Criminology Department, provided free of charge by the university.

Invitees included Hamilton County Coroner O'dell Owens; Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher and Cincinnati Fire Department Chief Robert Wright; Juvenile Court Judge Thomas Lipps; Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Rosa Blackwell; along with members of the clergy, Urban League and the city's solicitor's office.

Mallory said Owens and Streicher made a presentations about patterns they see in homicide cases, then the group broke into three groups for discussion. The meeting was closed to the media.

"Last night’s meeting was about getting people to analyze the barriers that keeps them from making progress in fighting crime," Mallory said. "Basically, it came down to what changes we need to make to decrease crime in general; how to deal with prvelance of guns and gun violence."

Mallory unveiled a portion of his plan to fight violent crime Jan. 19. Among the ideas:

--Police taking a renewed focus on busting mid-level drug dealers, who supply drugs to street corner dealers.

--Asking the U.S. Attorney's Office to accept more cases.

--Police and schools cooperating on truency sweeps.

--Combining the vice and drug enforcement units for better coordination.

--Pleading with citizens to report crime they see.