Savannah city leaders react to weekend shootings

Yahoo

26-02-2025

SAVANNAH, Ga (WSAV) — Police are investigating two shooting incidents over the weekend in the Live Oak area in Midtown Savannah, which left one dead and another person injured.
WSAV spoke with Savannah city leaders about what they are doing to combat crime in the neighborhood.
Mayor Van Johnson shared his condolences at Tuesday's weekly press conference.
'I want to extend our deepest condolences to the family of the young man who was killed near Live Oak Street last Friday night,' he said. 'We know that there was another shooting in the area as well. We're working our sources.'
So far, officials say there is no evidence that the two incidents were related.
'If you choose to pull a trigger in Savannah, you will choose to face the consequences,' Johnson said.
Both shootings took place in a neighborhood District 2 Alderman Detric Leggett knows well. He told News 3 he's working with neighbors in his district to prevent these incidents from happening.
'If we look at how the statistics are and we do our investigation, a lot of these people don't live in our community', Leggett said. 'So, we have to definitely start taking ownership back into around and befriending our front door.'
He said promoting transparency between neighbors and law enforcement could help solve crimes.
'We are asking more of our neighborhoods to have the ring doorbells.' said Leggett. 'If we can't, we're going to try to work with some agencies to help us fund ring doorbells and install them so that we can use them with our access system.'
He continued, 'What we definitely want to start doing is to roll calls in the streets, which at 6 p.m. in the afternoon we had two police officers come out and they do roll calls. So, we're going to be a little more visible so that people know that they can come back out on their front porches and not have to worry about things like this happening.'
Roll calls allow residents to speak openly with law enforcement about their neighborhood concerns.
As temperatures start to rise, crime tends to increase as well, and he urges everyone to be proactive instead of reactive.
'We're going to try to find more opportunities to do something with our young people, especially myself,' he said. 'We have the Savannah Impact Program that works with our young men, and we also have the women's program, with the Office of Neighborhood Engagement.'
Mayor Johnson said crime is overall down, but it's not completely gone.
The Savannah Police Department (SPD) rolled out a top 10 most wanted list for the month of February, they are looking for these individuals. Anyone with information, should call Crimestoppers at 912-234-2020, or submit an anonymous tip through the SPD mobile app.
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