we are pleased to be here this afternoon with members of the wonderful milwaukee police department community members elected officials to announce the arrest of a suspect in this reign of terror that has occurred in a five-week period on milwaukee's north and west side during this five-week period young women were followed on numerous occasions by an assailant who raped several of them and robbed many of them what happened here though was a textbook example of what happens when you've got a great police department when you have an engaged citizenry and you've got a state crime lab that is able to to process some dna slab swabs that were provided to that lab um i want to give my thanks first to the the men and women who work for the milwaukee police department for working so diligently with the neighborhood to make sure that this individual has been apprehended again what we had for a five-week period earlier this spring was literally a reign of terror because so many young women were accosted by this individual and this apprehension could not have taken place if we did not have the full cooperation of our citizens if we did not have the great work of the state crime lab but most importantly if we did not have the great work of the milwaukee police department so i would like to turn it over now to police chief edward flynn to talk a little bit more about the apprehension and the arrest of this individual individual chief thank you mr mayor we're here today to announce the arrest of a suspect in a spree of seven different crimes occurring over the course of five weeks from march 16 to april 21st of this year we're announcing the arrest of jonathan kirk date of birth august 4th 1989. he's being arrested for the sexual assaults of five women as well as six armed robberies a total of 11 crimes arising from seven different incidents the victims ranged in age from ages 15 to 34. and as i said the incident spanned a period of five weeks from march 16th to april 21st we're surrounded today by officers detectives identification technicians from the milwaukee police department we also have an analyst here from the state dna crime lab deborah carla who processed the evidence that we provided them with we also have with us members of the community who are critical in both alerting the community to protect themselves from additional assaults as well as rallying the community behind our efforts to solve this crime we have aldermen domestic violence advocates and concerned members of the community we have here several investigators in the sensitive crimes division who worked under the able command of captain james shepherd and lieutenant chad wagner police officers stephen hoffman alan karsky brian kovalenski and scott wilson were involved in the initial arrest of the suspect on april 6. they were part of a plain clothes saturation of a target area that included areas or these crimes that occurred they encountered the suspect behaving suspiciously and arrested him for loitering and prowling as well as possession of a facsimile firearm a bb gun during that investigation several suspects were arrested and from all of them bugle swabs were taken for dna samples the suspect in these serial rapes was one of those people when the state crime lab linked his dna swab to the dna recovered from the victims he was arrested again on may 5th detective greg jackson from the sensitive crimes division secured a confession from the suspect for these offenses we're continuing our investigation to see whether or not there may be other crimes that could be linked to this series i have with me today carmen petry from the sojourner family peace center we'll say a few words about her work and the work of advocates with this issue carmen thank you chief good afternoon we when we were invited to come here today we were very excited about coming to congratulate the milwaukee police department we're here to say thank you thank you thank you for making our community safer because of their dedication and hard work this community is safer today it shows that they are committed to making sure that all of us have safe homes and safe communities to live in we are a strong partner with the milwaukee police department we are grateful for that partnership we believe that through partnerships we'll be able to make our community better we believe that every single person every one of us deserves to live in safety and we're committed to doing that and we know that the milwaukee police department is a strong partner in making that happen so we're grateful for their work their strong dedication for making our community a better place we will continue to partner with them and what they've done today by arresting the suspect is they've helped victims start the long journey of healing and repairing themselves that may take many years to walk that road but they've started that journey and that journey is possible because of the work of the milwaukee police department so we're grateful we also want to ask that all of us as a community not only wrap our arms around these victims one victim is too many wrap our arms around them but that we respect their confidentiality and their privacy because they deserve to have that and that dignity and respect um to restore themselves back to healing and wholeness in our community so i was asked to give that message that we as a community respect their confidentiality and uh let them heal in private and let their families heal in private but again we're here to say congratulations to the milwaukee police department we're grateful for your work thanks carmen i'd also like to reiterate her message about respecting the victims a number of these were juveniles doesn't help their recovery process nor their willingness to participate in further prosecution if people try to interview them at their houses which has already occurred so it'd be a big help to the prosecution as well as to just what's right and ethical for dealing with crime victims of this nature that we we leave them alone for now one of the most pernicious aspects of a crime spree is its effect on neighborhoods the fear it produces and the tendency of crime to atomize neighborhoods and keep people locked inside their houses surrendering control of the streets to those whom would victimize them but sometimes crimes can bring people together and i'm glad to see that in this case the neighborhoods that were afflicted with this crime wave came together in community meetings block watch meetings and various other attempts to make sure there were not any additional victims of this crime spree you