THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) - Some residents in Thomasville have fallen victim to criminal street gangs over the past few months.
But, recently Thomasville Police have made several arrests, and Captain Maurice Holmes says crimes rates decreased almost immediately.
Holmes says three juveniles, and Markevious Samuel, were arrested in connection to car break-ins, and burglaries, and they are all still in jail.
For the past year there have been 100 car break-ins. Those juveniles and Samuel are linked to that spike in crime between June and August, when they had 35 car break-ins.
Since their arrests, that number is down to seven. However, Holmes says that doesn't mean the problem will go away.
"You're talking about one percent of the population committing 100 percent of the crime. And you know, once you take a certain group of individuals off the streets, crime always reduces significantly," said Holmes. "And you know, there are always going to be other individuals that are associated with these individuals that will carry on this trend, and we will address them as well."
Holmes says they take gang violence very seriously, and they do everything they can do identify and locate those people, because Thomasville has a zero tolerance for this type of behavior.
He says it's heavily monitored because, he doesn't want Thomasville to face the same struggles other cities do, if gangs became prevalent in the community.
