Mayor's Office

Today, Mayor Satya hosted a public safety briefing covering activities of the Madison Police Department, the violence prevention activities of the Public Health Madison Dane County, Vision Zero and the Madison CARES program for mental health crises.

You can watch the briefing in full here.

Below are the Mayor’s remarks.

Hello and welcome to another City of Madison public safety briefing. I feel it’s important to give the community insight into what we’re doing across the City and across departments to deliver a multifaceted approach to public safety and violence prevention in our community. I’m joined today by leaders in City agencies who will share their initiatives, designed through data and uplifted by collaborations between departments and also partners in our community.

We’ll start with Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes, who will update us about his strategic priorities and targeted efforts, followed by Aurielle Smith, who is leading our violence prevention efforts in the City-County public health department, followed by our Traffic Engineer Yang Tao who is spearheading Vision Zero, rounded out with an update from Madison Fire Assistant Chief Che Stedman about the Madison CARES program and plans for future expansion.

I want to thank everyone who presented here for working so hard not only leading their teams with evidence-based approaches to public safety, but also being great partners to each other and with the many community partners they’ve brought into this work along the way. Thank you to those in the community who participate through public meetings committee work, and community groups, which help make Madison a safer place.

I am pleased to hear that certain safety indicators -- like shots fired -- continue to trend downwards.

I am also happy that Public Health has hired their violence outreach and response specialists who will be focusing on preventing violence by connecting with individuals who are engaging in or victims of violence, connecting community members to resources and supporting them through recovery. These outreach specialists will add a dynamic new element to our array of services.

It’s great to see that even as unsafe driving continues in our community, investments in Vision Zero limit their severity, and that the Madison CARES teams are responding to mental health emergencies across the City and continue to plan for expansion. We are committed to tackling our communities most difficult public safety issues leveraging local and federal funds to make the greatest impact for our community