Bicycles appear a preferred mode of transportation for potential criminal behavior in Peoria. The Peoria Police Department’s “Don’t Shoot Team” is continuing efforts to curb shootings and murders in the city’s most violent neighborhoods. This is the third summer the taskforce has saturated certain neighborhoods to reduce crime.

Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard says the team has had a lot of success in taking guns and drugs off the street by stopping people on bicycles. 

"Either they've  been revoked, so they are not driving a car or they've learned that we stop a lot of cars and then we find these things. I think they've had some safety on a bicycle, you know, kind of avoiding a lot police interdiction. So our folks have been stopping a lot of bicycles for bicycle violations and we've been getting guns and drugs off of kids on bikes, and when I say kids, I mean young people, not necessarily young kids," says Settingsgaard.   

Settingsgaard says he’s not sure how many busts have been made by stopping people on bicycles, but he says it’s been significant. He says gun violence has gone down at least 65-percent this summer thanks to the “Don’t Shoot” taskforce. The team will likely disband in early fall.