Anatomy of a record homicide year in Memphis
A day at a time, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has been writing the names of those who have been murdered in a notebook he keeps with him since he became mayor in January 2016.
By Bill Dries
A day at a time, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has been writing the names of those who have been murdered in a notebook he keeps with him since he became mayor in January 2016.
When five people, two of them 15 years old, died violently the weekend that much of the world’s attention was on protest marches and the new administration in Washington, Strickland was getting updates on the latest surge in violence.
And when the work week began Jan. 23, he reacted.
“The weekend’s violence came from cowards who are using weapons instead of words to resolve conflict – and it has to stop,” his written statement began. “My message to any of you who illegally carry or use guns: You are the problem in Memphis. You are hurting our efforts to bring jobs and opportunity to our community. But you will not succeed in tearing us down. I repeat: You will not succeed in tearing us down.”
The statement was borne out of a familiar and time-honored frustration.
“Just the personal outrage I felt over the weekend,” Strickland said when asked what prompted his reaction. “The tragic loss of life.”
There may also have been some frustration that the long-term changes Strickland has outlined, changes others before him in elected positions have advocated, are just that – long-term changes that take time to work if they have worked in the first place.
“We need people to step up to be mentors, to help people learn to read so that young people don’t feel that tug to join a gang,” Strickland said. “If a child is mentored and knows how to read all the way through school and graduates high school, the chance they join a gang is so small that we can put the gangs out of business.”
Meanwhile, Strickland’s choice of police director, Michael Rallings, vented some of his frustration with a 37-page Power Point presentation that offered charts, graphs and maps that documented the city’s record 2016 homicide count multiple ways.
“I’m coming out swinging,” Rallings told the Memphis Rotary Club on Jan. 10 as he made the presentation. “I’m going to bring the fire.”
The statistics show that of the city’s 228 homicides in 2016:
• 195 were murders by the classic definition of someone intentionally taking the life of someone else, either in a premeditated way or at the spur of the moment without premeditation. These “criminal homicides” accounted for 92 percent of all homicides in the city.
• 19 were justifiable homicides in which authorities judged the person who died was killed by someone defending themselves. Justifiable homicides accounted for 8 percent of the city’s total homicides in 2016. Five each were in the Old Allen and Mount Moriah precincts.
• 8 were people who had been wounded in some way earlier, but died from their injuries in 2016.
• 4 were unborn children.
Rallings takes the position that the 195 murders are the problem to be dealt with.
But his recent deeper dive into the numbers doesn’t yield any easy or clear answers. And Rallings has his quarrels with some of the numbers as other numbers point to specific directions and places. Read more at source
When five people, two of them 15 years old, died violently the weekend that much of the world’s attention was on protest marches and the new administration in Washington, Strickland was getting updates on the latest surge in violence.
And when the work week began Jan. 23, he reacted.
“The weekend’s violence came from cowards who are using weapons instead of words to resolve conflict – and it has to stop,” his written statement began. “My message to any of you who illegally carry or use guns: You are the problem in Memphis. You are hurting our efforts to bring jobs and opportunity to our community. But you will not succeed in tearing us down. I repeat: You will not succeed in tearing us down.”
The statement was borne out of a familiar and time-honored frustration.
“Just the personal outrage I felt over the weekend,” Strickland said when asked what prompted his reaction. “The tragic loss of life.”
There may also have been some frustration that the long-term changes Strickland has outlined, changes others before him in elected positions have advocated, are just that – long-term changes that take time to work if they have worked in the first place.
 |
A majority of the city’s
homicide victims in 2016 were age 25 or older. (Memphis Police Department) |
“We need people to step up to be mentors, to help people learn to read so that young people don’t feel that tug to join a gang,” Strickland said. “If a child is mentored and knows how to read all the way through school and graduates high school, the chance they join a gang is so small that we can put the gangs out of business.”
Meanwhile, Strickland’s choice of police director, Michael Rallings, vented some of his frustration with a 37-page Power Point presentation that offered charts, graphs and maps that documented the city’s record 2016 homicide count multiple ways.
“I’m coming out swinging,” Rallings told the Memphis Rotary Club on Jan. 10 as he made the presentation. “I’m going to bring the fire.”
The statistics show that of the city’s 228 homicides in 2016:
• 195 were murders by the classic definition of someone intentionally taking the life of someone else, either in a premeditated way or at the spur of the moment without premeditation. These “criminal homicides” accounted for 92 percent of all homicides in the city.
• 19 were justifiable homicides in which authorities judged the person who died was killed by someone defending themselves. Justifiable homicides accounted for 8 percent of the city’s total homicides in 2016. Five each were in the Old Allen and Mount Moriah precincts.
• 8 were people who had been wounded in some way earlier, but died from their injuries in 2016.
• 4 were unborn children.
Rallings takes the position that the 195 murders are the problem to be dealt with.
But his recent deeper dive into the numbers doesn’t yield any easy or clear answers. And Rallings has his quarrels with some of the numbers as other numbers point to specific directions and places. Read more at source
