SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — It’s been a busy stretch for Sioux Falls Police Department detectives.
Since Aug. 20, police have started four different homicide investigations in less than a month. On Monday, police explained how a 30-year-old man was arrested and charged with murder in the city’s eighth homicide investigation of 2024.
Two recent homicide investigations, one involving a shooting at Dunham Park on Aug. 25 and the other involving a 27-year-old woman dead of gunshots fired at a mobile home on Sept. 4, have had no arrests in connection with the shootings.
“Since the Dunham Park incident, they’ve been working nonstop,” Sioux Falls Police Department Chief Jon Thum said about police investigators. “Our detectives are working super hard.”
During Monday’s police briefing, which you can see in the video above, Thum said there’s an “ebb and flow” with police work. He noted there were only two homicide investigations in 2023 and there have been eight so far in 2024. He stressed the three most-recent homicide investigations are uniquely different and highlighted they weren’t random.
He said the public shouldn’t take broad-based assumptions from the recent string of homicide investigations and look at each case individually.
Thum said police are investigating all eight homicides in 2024 and will continue to keep the cases open until they work through the court system. In June, police dealt with the first triple homicide since 1973. The suspect in that shooting was arrested on the scene by police.
“We have arrests or persons of interest in many of these cases,” Thum said. “There are people that we’re familiar with.”
Chief calls for ‘responsible gun ownership’
Thum said police don’t like seeing a lot of guns on the streets and seeing stolen guns used in crimes.
“I think responsible gun ownership is not a political issue,” Thum said. “Leaving your gun unlocked in your car is a common sense issue. If that offends somebody, I’m sorry, but it is what it is.”
Thum said discussing guns is a hot-button issue.
“That’s a community conversation,” Thum said. “We’re seeing more guns, more regular that they’re being used and the tragic consequences of that action.”
