hi I'm Chief John Mesa and welcome to the chief's message first of all I want to thank our community for all the great support you have given this organization and I want to assure you that our Police Department is working 247 dedicated and committed to keeping our community safe some of the things that are happening at Mesa PD right now first of all we are seeing a decrease in violent crime this year of 133% which is incredible incredible uh compared to last year where we actually saw an increase in violent crime of 133% uh and what we attribute that to is the proactive and hard work from all our uh Patrol officers and all the support staff they're going out there and targeting uh the the criminals and targeting the areas that uh need service when it comes to Speeders or people shoplifting or people uh breaking into homes uh we use intelligence-led policing where officers are given missions and there are patrolling areas where we think high crime will be active uh also want to touch on light rail uh as of this weekend trains have rolled into downtown Mesa and the Mesa Police Department is ready for that uh we just started a new bike unit which consists currently of three uh bicycle officers that will be patrolling the downtown area but also the entire Light Rail Corridor uh ensuring that we're going to have safety and people are going to enjoy uh the light rail system uh that's a program that we look at expanding uh in the future as we move forward uh uh and so if you see a bike officer out there please say hi and let them know that uh that uh you're you're happy to see them out there also want to touch base on our community forums uh we have had the the community forums at the Mesa Police Department for over eight years uh we saw a decrease in activity a few years ago so we really emphasized that Community engagement piece and trying to get people involved in our community forums uh we are starting now to see a a large increase in the participation of our community with the the forums here at the police department and I encourage anybody out there that may be interested there's all different forums if you want to check our website from the African-American Forum to the Hispanic Forum clergy Forum uh our business for and and it goes on and on so if you want a list of all the forms and and one of them sounds interesting to you uh please uh uh send us an email and sign up and that leads me to the last thing if uh you want to get involved with the Mesa Police Department or you want to know just what's going on uh please sign up to our Facebook page and our Twitter page where you'll get uh updated information that is going on throughout the day and the significant uh events that are going on with the Mesa Police Department so one once again thank you so much uh we are proud to serve and uh Chief Mesa and uh hope to see you out there thank you