Joint Statement on Homicides Share

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A state­ment from May­or Jess Alum­baugh, Grant Coun­ty Pros­e­cu­tor Rod­ney Faulk, and Police Chief Angela Haley:

As ser­vants of this com­mu­ni­ty, we are out­raged at the vio­lence that has plagued our city this past year. Most recent­ly, the sense­less deaths of two young chil­dren who had their lives tak­en by no fault of their own.

Once again, our com­mu­ni­ty was stunned with grief, ques­tion­ing when will this end. The lives of the fam­i­lies involved in these hor­rif­ic events have been changed for­ev­er, and so has our city. To say we offer our thoughts and prayers to the fam­i­lies of these vic­tims is not enough. It does­n’t cap­ture the heartache, grief and anger that we all should feel. And it does noth­ing to pre­vent the tak­ing of life from hap­pen­ing again.

We cur­rent­ly have 8 unsolved homi­cides that occurred in 2018. How­ev­er, in the major­i­ty of those vio­lent deaths where a life was cut short, there were wit­ness­es. Indi­vid­u­als who saw a life tak­en through an act of vio­lence and yet failed to come for­ward to bring not only an assailant to jus­tice, but some peace to the fam­i­lies and community.

We are quick to point at our pub­lic safe­ty offi­cers and ask, ​“Why don’t they arrest who­ev­er did this?” But with­out our cit­i­zens com­ing for­ward and vow­ing to take back our com­mu­ni­ty, the work of our men and women in law enforce­ment is a daunt­ing challenge.

Make no mis­take, we will con­tin­ue to work togeth­er at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment, and com­mit what­ev­er resources are nec­es­sary to bring these mur­der­ers to jus­tice. We can make a dif­fer­ence by work­ing togeth­er. Work­ing togeth­er to ensure that every fam­i­ly will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live their lives in a safe com­mu­ni­ty free from fear.

Jess Alum­baugh, Mayor 

Rod­ney Faulk, Prosecutor 

Angela Haley, Police Chief