TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Business owners are pleading with Pima County Supervisors for help fighting crime. They say it’s street crime from drug users and homeless people.
Almost everyone has seen people living on the street. Business owners are telling Pima County Supervisors, they’re seeing homeless people and drug users turn up in their businesses ready to steal and hurt people.
Grant Krueger owns a collection of restaurants.
“I’ve got unsheltered individuals bathing in our fountains, doing drugs in our bathrooms, scaring off my customers and making it unsafe for my business to continue to do business like this.”
Business people packed the Pima Supervisors meeting to share their fear and frustration. They say drug users and homeless people are using properties like open air bathrooms, breaking into businesses, and threatening customers and staff.
Veronica Hanley says, “The next time a homeless criminal demonstrates to me they are putting my employees, my clients or myself in imminent danger I won’t hesitate to exercise my legal, gun carrying right to protect those whose lives are in imminent danger.”
Business people say law enforcement is slow to respond if it responds at all. Keven Daily says when officers do make arrests criminals are freed almost right away.
“Causing our TPD officer to waste up to three hours of booking only to see perpetrators let out the back door.”
Pima Supervisor Steve Christy and Chair Sharon Bronson called for the County staff to come up with solutions. Supervisors ordered their staff to work with City of Tucson staff especially since many of the cases are low level misdemeanors handled in city, not county court.
City of Tucson Pretrial services is a part of the quick releases businesses complain about. Supervisors are talking about letting the city use a county building near the jail so pretrial services has more space for its operations.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
