El Paso police to use high-tech data to help combat crime

The El Paso Police Department held a news conference regarding a new approach to combating crime.

It’s called Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration describes it as a method that combines location-based crime and traffic crash data to plan where to assign law police and resources.

Simply put, it can be called a form of proactive policing: a bigger, visible police presence in areas more prone to crime deters would-be offenders.

The tactic may be new for city police, however the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office enacted it several years ago.

Sgt. Robert Graziano wrote that his patrol area was “plagued with crime” related to drugs and alcohol, in a 2016 article published in Tactical Solutions Magazine.

Graziano added that within three days law enforcement officers were able to gather sufficient information on leads and crimes in the area.

EPPD stated it will be discussing specific crimes it plans to target at the news conference.

Look for updates to this story on ABC-7 at 10.