Police Chief Ron Miller gave the police department's quarterly report Tuesday night, and said that crime is actually down 23% from this time last year.

Miller spoke specifically about the two recent homicides, and said they believe they know the motives behind them and have several suspects they are looking at.

Miller said keeping the community safe is a team effort.

"We've had a couple of really high profile incidents," he said. "A couple of tragedies that certainly concern the community and concern the police department as well, but generally speaking, crime is down in Topeka, there are many neighborhood groups that are working together, much less vehicle break-in than there used to be, and it's not time to stop, it's time to continue working together."

Also at the meeting, council members planned to put the helicopter issue to rest for good by voting to formally terminate a lease purchase agreement to buy a new helicopter.

They couldn't agree on the wording of that termination however, and have deferred the vote until next week's meeting.