GREEN BAY – A Pewaukee group's mass mailing that tells Green Bay voters their City Council representatives presided over a 600% increase in "the homicide rate" and eliminated 10 police officers is riddled with inaccuracies, officials say.
There has been no such increase in homicide deaths in the city over the years, and while Green Bay Police has struggled to find and train candidates to immediately replace retiring staff members, it has not laid off officers.
The mailer, paid for by a political activist group that lists a Waukesha County post office box as its address, claims Green Bay City Council member Barbara Dorff "defunded police while crime soared." It also claims homicides increased seven-fold in Green Bay since she was elected, which was in 2016.
"We can't figure out where that came from," said Kevin Warych, patrol commander for the Green Bay Police Department.
The FBI's uniform crime reports and a recent update from the police department show Green Bay averaged 2.5 homicides a year from 1999 to 2021 — hitting a peak of six murders in 1999 and in 2020. Counting the year Dorff took office in April 2016, the city has continued to average 2.5 homicides through last year, when there was one.
The mailer could have been plucking just two years' figures for homicides — the one death in 2018 vs. the six in 2020 — to come up with a 600% increase. But that ignores the other four years of the time period cited, including the fact that homicides were down 600% from 2020 to...
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