Public Safety Questions Raised Following Triple Stabbing in Frederick

Mayor addresses those questions on WFMD’s ‘Morning News Express.’Frederick  Mayor Michael O’ConnorFrederick, Md (KM) Since last weekend’s incident in the 100 block of North Market Street where three people were stabbed, the question that has been asked is how safe is the city of Frederick;  Is violent crime getting worse? Mayor Michael O’Connor addressed that issue Tuesday on WFMD’s “Morning News Express.””The numbers do not suggest that it’s getting worse,” he said. “And I think the benefit of understanding the motive is to reassure people that the average person in our community is not in danger of becoming a victim of a violent crime.”Police say the stabbing resulted from an altercation involving the three victims. The three were taken to area hospitals for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. Detectives say their investigation indicates that this was a targeted incident, and not a random act of violence.Mayor O’Connor says the statistics also show that most victims of violent  crimes were targeted by their attackers, and that the chances of most residents being the targets of random violent crime are very slim. “It’s not the kinds of crime where the perpetrators and the victims don’t know one another. In most the incidents that occur in the city, these are known parties to one another. Knowing that it’s a targeted incident, we want to be reassuring to the community.”But he notes it doesn’t  make it right if a crime victim was targeted. “Just because it’s targeted doesn’t make it better,”: O’Connor says. “It maybe makes it better for the random person, but it’s not better for the people involved. Violence is not the way to settle problems.”By Kevin McManus