One way or another, Ferriday police are going to find a way to curtail violent crime in the town.

“We have a disproportionate (to our population) amount of violent crime involving weapons in Ferriday,” Police Chief Richard Madison said.

This comes on the heels of a week that saw four gun-related arrests — including two attempted murders — in the town of less than 4,000.

“Part of this problem is you can buy weapons without major consequences,” he said.

Madison said he had a statistician pull crime statistics for violent crimes in the last 36 months.

“I wanted to know if they were drug-related, multiple offenses, if they involved repeat offenders,” he said.

Kittress M. Williams, 41, who was arrested Thursday on attempted murder charges after he shot a man with a handgun, was an example of a violent repeat offender, Madison said.

There are also some correlations between times, places and types of crime committed, Madison said.

“We’re going to combat (crime) in one way by beefing up patrols during those times,” he said.

The police will build a strategy based on what they know, Madison said.

“You’ve got to have a plan, but you need to know the problem,” he said.

The police will crack down on violent crime either through education or stronger enforcement, Madison said.

Earlier this week, he said Mayor Gene Allen had authorized him to send officers to a course for training in the use of non-lethal weapons, tasers.

Tasers fire dart-like electrodes attached to wires up to 10 meters and deliver an electric shock to temporarily immobilize subjects.

Madison will try to meet with other local law enforcement officials like Sheriff Randy Maxwell and District Attorney John Johnson to devise a plan across jurisdictional lines, he said.

“You can see our problems here, but it’s not just Ferriday,” he said.