Capt. Jason Cokinos is on his third stint working in Silver Spring.

Two decades ago, he patrolled the streets as an officer. Years later, he worked as a midnight supervisor.

In 2024, he was named commander of the department’s Third District and was tasked with addressing crime, including in downtown Silver Spring, often perceived as one of the most crime-ridden areas of Montgomery County.

“If you were to ask me if I would go to dinner in [downtown] Silver Spring in 2021, 2022, I’d say probably not,” Cokinos said. “But in 2026, I actually would go out to dinner in Silver Spring. It’s night and day compared to what it was back then.”

Police say crime in Silver Spring dropped significantly in 2025 compared to the previous year. Gun assaults are down 53%, carjackings are down 35% and weapons discharges have declined 18%.

Homicides in Silver Spring remained unchanged in 2025 compared with 2024, with nine in both years.

The crime drop in Silver Spring follows a pattern across the county, which has seen an overall crime reduction of 9% since 2024.

While the decline in crime is encouraging, Cokinos said, police are still trying to return to pre-pandemic crime levels. In the years following the COVID-19 outbreak, crime increased, the judicial system was overwhelmed, and the health crisis kept officers from patrolling the streets and interacting in meaningful ways with residents and visitors, Cokinos said.

Officials said the crime reduction in Silver Spring can be attributed to many tactics, including strengthening partnerships with local homeless shelters to get more unhoused people into homes, adding more bathrooms at shelters to prevent people from relieving themselves outside, county legislation that’s helped encourage safety planning among downtown businesses, the use of technology and more patrols from county officers.

County officers have taken to patrolling the Silver Spring Metro Station to stop fare evaders, some of whom come into Silver Spring to commit crimes, Cokinos said.

“It’s not just about arresting people — it’s actually about solving problems,” he said. “We can’t just declare victory and walk away. There are broader issues that we need to solve in some of these areas.”

Late-night changes

Montgomery County Council member Kate Stewart, who represents downtown Silver Spring, cited two pieces of County Council legislation that helped reduce crime. In 2023, county legislation required businesses that are open between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. and sell alcohol or tobacco to develop late-night safety plans.

That legislation also called for any businesses that operate between midnight and 2 a.m., and have been linked to serious incidents by police over the previous year, to develop a safety plan.

In 2024, after the public safety plan for businesses did not deter enough rowdiness downtown, the council followed up with a bill that defined hours of operation for hookah lounges, mandating earlier closing times.

The result, Stewart said, was a calmer late-night scene downtown, which had attracted hordes of visitors from other areas that would lead to late-night crimes.

“We had very large crowds, and at like four or five in the morning, instances of drinking and other things going on in the streets,” she said.

Residents and visitors now generally feel more at ease downtown, Stewart said.

“Statistics are one thing, but making sure people feel safe and comfortable in our downtown area is really important.”

Shamil Shemsu, 55, owns a hookah lounge and a separate tobacco shop on Thayer Avenue downtown. Shemsu said his tobacco store has been broken into four times over the years, the latest occurring about six months ago.

After the third break-in, Shemsu installed bulletproof glass at the shop, he said.

“The police officers, they’re trying their best. Anytime I need them,” he snapped his fingers, “they are here.”

He noted that arrests have been made in after-hour break-ins, and while he feels mostly safe, late-night phone calls often prompt him to check the tobacco store’s cameras via his phone to see if everything is OK.

“Psychologically, I’m impacted,” Shemsu said. “You feel something — unsafe.”

Technology and policing

Stewart has lauded the department’s Drone as First Responder program, which allows a drone to get to crime scenes more quickly than patrol officers. She mentioned that the program is particularly helpful with smash-and-grab robberies, where criminals use hammers, crowbars or other tools to smash display cases before running away from the business with stolen items.

“The drone is deployed right away, and as the police are getting there, it can see where the people are running. We can communicate with the officers who are dispatched and tell them where to go to actually catch the people,” Stewart said.

Cokinos also said data-driven analysis prompted him to deploy additional officers at city hot spots, which have included downtown, White Oak — an area that has had issues with car break-ins and street robberies — and Briggs Chaney, where he says guns and drug dealing have been significant.

Overtime as a crutch

Problematic areas have at times seen anywhere from five to 12 more patrol officers assigned to them, often covered by overtime pay, Cokinos said.

“We take the data points, and wherever the data is, we try to put officers or technology in those in those areas,” he said. “Every dollar that we use has a purpose. We want to be very, very sensitive to the taxpayer. ... We have used a chunk of overtime to do extra initiatives.”

Cokinos could not provide an exact amount of overtime pay distributed to his officers last year. However, police frequently use overtime to offset an officer shortfall, which last month was about 182 officers, according to memos presented to the county council’s Public Safety Committee.

Police overspent on overtime, including exceeding the department’s overtime budget by nearly $11 million in fiscal year 2025, according to the memo. That same memo indicated that in 2024, seven officers in the Silver Spring district were among the department’s top 25 overtime earners. That included the second-highest overtime earner, who took home $155,000 in overtime.

Emily Pelecanos, 67, a resident of downtown Silver Spring, said crime was getting out of hand in her neighborhood.

“There was a period when it was not safe, a couple years ago,” she said, referencing nightclubs and late-night businesses that drew a rowdy crowd that resulted in stabbings and shootings.

She said, however, that downtown is getting safer, noting the abundance of cameras and greater visibility of officers.

“There’s more of a police presence. You see them,” Pelecanos said.