After the 20th homicide of the year was reported in Stockton, police have come up with a new strategy called "Operation RVN."

STOCKTON, Calif. — Stockton Police have come up with a new strategy to help suppress the crime rate as homicide numbers continue to rise across the city. It's a game plan they're calling "Operation RVN."

"We need to get police officers into those neighborhoods right now as much as possible," Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones said.

The 20th homicide of the year in Stockton happened on Sunday, May 26.

"I think a number over zero is too many. It's just uncalled for. We're not at war," Carolyn Hammond, a neighbor in the Polo Run apartment complex said.

Jones said the department is taking immediate action by creating a new strategy with Operation RVN, which stands for reducing violence in neighborhoods, and by calling in some of neighboring law enforcement agencies to help.

"For example, the (San Joaquin County) sheriff's office and the California Highway Patrol, [getting] some more marked black and white police cars in these neighborhoods so that we can reduce the violence that's really in our county but mostly concentrated in Stockton right now. We really need to work together to try to suppress it," he said.

This operation is going to focus on targeting neighborhoods that have existing high-crime rates, like the Kentfield neighborhood. That's just down the street from where five people were shot and one was killed during a candlelight vigil for someone that was killed in the same place, just days before, off of March Lane.

Police say they'll also focus on areas near Hammer Lane and West Lane.

"Virtually all of them are group-related, meaning that they are an active violent group of some sort...and it is not actual random violence of any sort," he said.

Jones admits that saturating these neighborhoods with marked patrol cars from every agency is a short term solution to suppress the violence. But it's also meant to give his own officers time to catch up on investigations that have been piling up.

"To see the flareups that we've seen just in the past month concerns us immensely and that's why we are pulling in outside resources, state, federal resources to help us suppress this to give Stockton the safety that this city deserves," he said.