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Editor's note: Today's meeting at 2:30 will be televised live on the citys cable system, Channel 13.



Channel 13 will show a rerun of the meeting at 11:30 p.m.


Viewers can also watch the meeting on streaming video through the citys Web site.

GREENSBORO The first days in December might have been peaceful somewhere but not here.

What should the the City Council do? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

Between Dec. 1 and 8, seven people were killed: six shot and one stabbed. Two, police say, were victims of gang killings; three involved drug dealers. Investigators are still trying to determine why one man was stabbed in his home and another was shot down in the street.

The 32 homicides this year are slightly above average for the past five years.

What has caught the attention of the City Council its first official act as a newly elected body was to call an emergency meeting today with police Chief Tim Bellamy is the rapid upturn that number has taken in December.

"People are calling us right and left," Mayor Yvonne Johnson said. "To hear the fear and panic in people's voices 'What are y'all gonna do? When are you going to get more police?' just on and on.

"People need to hear from us."

Councilman Mike Barber, who requested the meeting, said the council needs to give its "full and complete attention" to the crime problems.

He said he'd like to discuss creating a more active police reserve unit and hear other ways Bellamy might bolster the force.

"If we took our last two weeks as a snapshot, then at this rate we would surpass Philadelphia, Washington and New York in murders," he said.

But recent homicides send more of a message about a culture that promotes violence than about the police, said Capt. Gary Hastings, commander of the police department's criminal investigation division.

"All the prevention in the world can make those crimes difficult to commit, but it can't prevent them," Hastings said.

"When you're dealing with drug dealers who are heavily armed, late at night, in private places where there are not police officers, it's a very difficult thing to prevent."

Hastings said preventing serious crimes takes a long-term effort that reaches beyond what police can affect, including tough prosecution, long prison sentences for criminals and laws that keep guns out of public places.

Meanwhile, there have been more homicides in the first eight days of December than Greensboro has homicide detectives. Those six detectives could do nothing but add the new slayings to their existing caseloads.

"When we're faced with this kind of violence, we've had to pull people in who weren't on call," Hastings said.

Hastings said that strategy takes detectives from their homes and families and also from other investigations.

"When someone has a fresh homicide, someone might drop their other cases to help out for a few hours," Hastings said. "It is very difficult to manage. We are understaffed."

Part of the difficulty in reducing the incidence of homicides is in their nature. The only homicides that can be predicted are those committed by serial killers, according to Nonnie Oligmueller, a police department crime analyst.

"Most of the time, a homicide is a heat-of-the-moment type thing," Oligmueller said. "You have no pattern."

And patterns are what police rely on to be able to prevent crime.

"If you have a pattern of crimes, the police can respond to it," Hastings said. "One person getting angry at another person and having a gun, we can't do anything to prevent that," he said.

The slayings so far this month:

* Brothers Manuel Garcia Salinas, 42, and Ruben Garcia Salinas, 31, were shot and killed by MS-13 gang members Saturday at Las Jarochitas, a restaurant at 3738 High Point Road. Police say the brothers were not involved with a gang.

* Steve Tickle, 53, was found stabbed to death Saturday in his home at 1118 Warren St.

* Born God Supreme Thompson, 26, and Shuntae Lamont Watson, 26, were killed Dec. 2 outside a Lee Street nightclub in a drug-related shooting, according to police.

* 24-year-old Kenneth Darius White was killed in what police described as a drug-related shooting on Dec. 1 at the home of Carlos Andre Cooke, 24, of 152 Drewsbury Drive. Cooke was charged with first-degree murder.

* Derrick Eugene Boyd, 28, died in surgery at Moses Cone Hospital after police found him shot in the 900 block of Gregory Street on Dec. 1.

Staff Writer Margaret Moffet Banks contributed to this report.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or selmquist@news-record.com