Editor, the News-Herald:

Thanks to the city of Suffolk Police force for the great work they do. The recent article showing a definite decrease in crime in our city was the best news to help make our cherished downtown thrive.

For years the city has tried and tried to make downtown a desirable place to do business, mostly by pouring in lots of money with fancy street lights, stop lights, and the like.

This is all OK, but it really was not until Suffolk was removed from the daily morning news list of cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth where each day someone was shot, robbed or murdered.

It took our city a new police chief to build up morale of the force and recruit and keep an honest and hard working large force to make downtown a place where we once again feel safe to walk without great fear of purses being snatched or being mugged.

Keep up the great work!

Wouldn’t it be great if once the Old Suffolk High School is complete and people from all over come and enjoy a cultural event at the center that they could late at night walk back to the Hilton safely without fear?

(Privately run/city licensed carriage rides would be good, too)

Look at cities like Charleston and even the Granby Street area of Norfolk.

The thugs are kept out to make these areas nice places to walk even at night.

Decreasing the crime was a must in order to make the historical area of downtown Suffolk a desirable place to shop, dine and socialize.

Thank you city of Suffolk for finally pouring money into our police force, and doing what was needed first to make old downtown a little safer.

Denice King Garner

Suffolk