Houston, Dec 28 (IANS): Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has urged community leaders to work together to bring down violence in the city located in the US state of Texas.

Joining community leaders at a "Stop the Violence H-Town" rally on Sunday, Turner said the number of violent crimes in Houston has been on the rise in the year 2020, reports Xinhua news agency.

He said he exchanged ideas with a number of US Mayors recently to address this issue.

"2020 has been a challenging year. While everybody is dealing with this pandemic how do we bring down the violence?" he queried.

While giving credit to the organisers of this event, Turner urged more leaders to listen to people's needs.

"It's not just about adding police. It's about getting in these communities and meeting people's needs and letting people know that we care," he said.

"It requires all hands working in all communities and letting people know that we are not just there to police them, we are to uplift these people," the Mayor added.

Houston police have reported several times that the crime rate in the city increased this year.

According to Houston Crime Stoppers, a community program that helps people to provide anonymous information about criminal activity, 2020 is one of the most violent years in the country's fourth populous city since the 1990s.

While there were a total of 120,256 crimes reported in the city, the crime rate stood at 51.71 per cent, according to figures provided by Neighbourhood Scout.