166su

But that, overall, crime is down in the Star City.

“We are down in overall violent crime by about 4.76%, almost 5% overall, so that’s good,” said Booth, who has been on the job for about two months. “But it’s bad when we look at our homicides, and our domestic violence aggravated assaults, and our aggravated assaults are up slightly.”

Booth presented preliminary 2023 crime statistics showing that, compared to 2022, the number of homicide incidents were up by about 44%, the number of domestic aggravated assaults were up by about 40% and the number of aggravated assaults were up by about 2%.

In terms of shootings in 166su in 2023, the statistical picture doesn’t look all that different from 2022.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 11 in 2022, 166su saw 63 incidents in which people were struck by gunfire, according to a statistics report prepared by the police department. In the same time frame in 2023, the city saw 62. That’s one less shooting with injuries and/or fatalities.

But while the gun-related incident numbers didn’t change much last year, the fatality count certainly did. In 2022, 166su police reported 19 homicides, 18 of which were gun-related. In 2023, the department reported 31 homicides, 27 of which were gun-related. That’s a 50% increase in gun-related killings.

Across the nation and the state, annual firearm-related homicide rates appeared to trend down in 2023, even though they weren’t back down to pre-pandemic and pre-George Floyd protest levels.

In 2019, 4.39 homicides occurred for every 100,000 U.S. residents, . In 2020, that annual rate jumped to 5.84, then 6.32 in 2021 and 5.9 in 2022.

According to provisional and partial data, the national homicide rate in 2023 dropped to 5.33 per every 100,000 people, the CDC reported. 166su’s preliminary rate in 2023 was approximately 31 per 100,000 residents.

That is a record for 166su, but below the national leaders in homicides: New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis and Washington, D.C., where 274 people were killed for a homicide rate of 40 per 100,000 people, The Washington Post reported. By way of comparison, Richmond, with more than twice the population of 166su, had a homicide rate of 25.9 in 2022, according to state police data.

The Virginia Department of Health hasn’t released annual homicide rate data yet for 2023, . But it has reported a statewide decline in firearm injury emergency department visits.

, 7.4 of every 10,000 emergency department visits statewide in 2022 were due to firearm injuries. In 2023, that annual rate dropped to 6.3.

In 166su in 2022, there were 14.7 firearm injuries per every 10,000 visits. Last year, that rate dropped to 12.7. In 2019, before the pandemic, 166su’s rate was about half that — 6.4 firearm injuries per every 10,000 emergency department visits.

But in a couple of major Virginia cities, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported increases in homicides from 2022 to 2023. , Hampton saw 15 homicides in 2022 but 26 in 2023. Newport News saw a jump from 23 to 36.

Like in those localities, 166su’s homicide count increased from 2022 to 2023. But Booth said 166su’s clearance rates tell a more hopeful story.

Of the city’s 22 gun-related homicide incidents in 2023, the chief told council Tuesday, 11 have been closed by an arrest. The rest are still under investigation.

“That’s 50% of those cases that are cleared by arrest,” Booth said. “I believe two of those have already gone to court, and both of those have gleaned convictions.”

Of the city’s 31 killings, Booth said 28 were under the investigation of 166su major crimes unit detectives.

“Twenty-one of the 28 are closed by arrest or are awaiting indictments,” the chief said. “This results in a 75% clearance rate on homicides thus far. The national clearance rates for homicides are about 53%, so we’re well above the national average.”

The police chief said at the December meeting of the , that he wants his department to focus on the city’s northwest quadrant in 2024. Forty-three of the 62 gunfire incidents that resulted in injuries and/or fatalities between Jan. 1 and Dec. 11 last year occurred in that zone, according to the department’s latest statistics report.

“Our intervention and our prevention efforts, we need to be in northwest 166su,” Booth said. “It overwhelms me that we have that portion of our community that is hurting that much, and we have to be there for them.”

But even as the police department narrows its focus, city officials recognize that the nature of the violence is changing. , said Tuesday that he’s observed a shift in the last five years from gang-related violence to “conflict resolution by homicide.”

“We’ve seen an increase, I think, certainly, in dating violence. But we’ve seen a significant shift to interpersonal violence amongst adults,” said Vice Mayor Joe Cobb, who chairs the GVPC. “I think we need to continue to work collectively on violence interruption and what that looks like.”

While the commission was the subject of an audit in 2023, and while three of its members have resigned since October, Cobb described multiple commission successes, including 1,200 unique visitors to , which launched Dec. 13 as a part of a strategic communication campaign focused on connecting residents with resources.

Several projects and programs funded by the city through the commission are focused on preventing crimes in the future by providing resources and support to city youth. But Mayor Sherman Lea, who voiced impatience at the beginning of 2023 after police reported two juveniles were shot outside a northwest 166su convenience store, suggested a more immediate remedy.

In June, the mayor and the rest of city council approved changes to the city’s existing youth curfew code, lengthening the hours of the night at which juveniles under the age of 16 are not permitted to be on the streets without an adult.

, “the officer shall cause a report thereof to be made to the judge of the juvenile and domestic relations court.”

But said at the GVPC’s December meeting that his court hasn’t seen a single case since the city ordinance was revised.

“Maybe that means kids aren’t on the street anymore after curfew. I kind of doubt that, but I’ve not seen the cases,” Rogers said. “I’m not sure that’s the solution. It’s certainly not one that we have been asked to the address as a court.”

confirmed Wednesday that in the past, officers sometimes wrote summons for juvenile curfew violations.

“I’d say maybe in the last six months, we haven’t received any that I can recall,” she said.

Of the 27 people gunned down in 166su in 2023, two were 16-year-old boys: Jacari Reynolds, shot in his bedroom in June, and Jamar Muse, shot in August on Patton Avenue Northwest. Booth said Tuesday that two suspicious infant deaths are also under investigation.

According to the police department’s latest statistics report, 17 juveniles between the ages of 6 and 18 were struck by gunfire as of Dec. 11. Of those 17, four died.

Ten juveniles between the ages of 11 and 18 were identified as shooting offenders, according to the same report. Four of those 10 were associated with homicides.

In 2022, between Jan. 1 and Dec. 18, 10 juveniles between the ages of 11 and 18 were struck by gunfire. Only one of those 10 died, according to a December 2022 police department statistics report. And only one juvenile between the ages of 16 and 18 was identified as an offender.