The Sioux Falls City Council overwhelmingly approved Mayor Mike Huether's appointment of new Chief of Police Matt Burns, who will take the position being vacated by the retiring Doug Barthel.

While appearing before city council Burns commented on the crime rate in Sioux Falls remaining low for the population base and growth rate.

"Since I've been on the department, since 1996, we've always enjoyed a comparatively low crime rate in comparison to other municipalities across the country of our size and that's still accurate," said Burns. "Now while we see a growth rate of about 2% in our population, we see a commensurate rate in our calls for service and our crime rate has remained relatively stable. In fact this year, one benchmark is our homicide, and we were about a third of what we were last year."

Chief Burns also revealed the current test of body cams for Sioux Falls police.

"That is something that we are looking to invest in the 2016 budget and purchase about a dozen. We want to put those on our motor officers and some of our bicycle officers to kind of plug a gap where the don't currently have a camera platform."

Burns also says the tasers are proving successful since employed, as just presenting the taser and the clicking sound has brought suspects to cooperate with authorities.

Burns officially becomes chief this fall.

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