New Raleigh police chief says she wants to make Raleigh the safest city in America

In her first interview since becoming Raleigh’s chief of police, she said that tackling violent crime was a high priority.

There were 28 homicides reported in the city last year. So far this year, there's been 18. A third of those homicides are in the same zipcode in southeast Raleigh.

The most recent shooting in that area took the life of Charlie Debnam, who was volunteering with Helping Hand Mission when he was hit during a drive-by shooting.

"I’m fully committed to making Raleigh the safest city in this country," Patterson said.

To help decrease violent crimes in the city, Patterson said she's going to improve community engagement.

"We know when the community is involved, then they are more likely to tell us what is occurring. If there are individuals that are causing problems, if there is violence, they’re going to pass that information on to us," she said.

Councilman Corey Branch who serves southeast Raleigh says the solution to rising crime rates is a mixture of giving people job and housing opportunities and youth and mental health programs.

Branch said he does not believe increasing police patrol is an answer to rising crime rates.

"When you have disagreements you don’t have to go to violence," Branch said.

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