page_title: Wilmington, Delaware
section_title: Police
hierarchical_section_title: Wilmington, Delaware / Public safety / Police
caption_attribution_description: English: Wilmington DE Police Dodge Van
context_page_description: Wilmington is the largest and most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine River, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister during the reign of George II of Great Britain.
  As of the 2019 United States Census estimate, the city's population is 70,166. The Wilmington Metropolitan Division, comprising New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD and Salem County, NJ, had an estimated 2016 population of 719,887. The Delaware Valley metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey, had a 2016 population of 6,070,500, and a combined statistical area of 7,179,357.
context_section_description: The Wilmington Police Department (WPD), which aims to "raise the level of public safety through law enforcement and thereby reduce the fear and incidence of crime", is authorized to deploy up to 289 officers in motor vehicles, on foot, and on bicycle. Its operations are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. As of 2017, its chief is Robert Tracy.
  In 2002, the Police Department started a program known as jump-outs in which unmarked police vans would patrol crime-prone neighborhoods late at night, suddenly converge at street corners and temporarily detain loiterers; photographing and fingerprinting the detainees. The program was touted as a good way to arrest people with drugs or weapons, fill out the police's database of fingerprints, and identify eyewitnesses for future crime investigations. Some citizens said the practice violated civil rights.
  Also in 2002, Wilmington became perhaps the first U.S. city with surveillance cameras covering the downtown area.
caption: WPD paddywagon at Rodney Square
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