Out of Control?

It’s a remarkably beautiful autumn afternoon, so instead of collapsing from exhaustion after work, I go with a friend for a walk. We stroll by the remnants of a car crash on Wethersfield Avenue. The bumper and license plate are on the ground, along with other debris from the collision.

We turn the corner to walk down Ledyard Street. A coach is yelling during football practice by the high school. Neither of us are interested in the sport, so we walk on by, but not before hearing the unmistakable pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-pop of gunshots. We are both casual about it because it sounds at least a few blocks away and it’s not an uncommon sound anyway. I assume this is all in Colt Park, based only on the direction of the sound. After stopping off at one of our local breweries, we check the news and see the shots were fired up in South Green, on one side or the other of the park. Not Colt Park, but the park. The one that sees little positive use. Nothing surprising here. On any given day walking by this park I see open air drug sales. I have witnessed hard drug use. In the last few weeks, I’ve passed by two individuals receiving medical attention for overdoses. Anyone shocked by this activity is not paying attention.

We shrug and walk back by this, knowing enough time has passed for the scene to settle. Cops on Twitter say the road has re-opened, but when we go through, it is closed and there is tape around the other side of the park from where shots were reported. Turns out, another shooting ensued some time in the last few hours.

Maybe others would react with fear, but the street and sidewalks are cordoned off and police are actually outdoors in the neighborhood. Normally, they are separate from everyone else, inside the shells of their cruisers, driving through. The buying, selling, and using has temporarily stopped on this block. Everyone scattered. There is one guy walking through the park, an island between a cluster of streets where downtown transitions to the neighborhoods.

The next day, I return to my regularly scheduled program. I check the news to see if there are any details about what happened the night before. There is nothing of interest. There rarely is. When this kind of thing happens in the suburbs, we will read whole profile pieces about everybody involved. There is noise, as always, out of the terrible neighborhood group on Facebook. Over-the-top claims are made. People trade in panicked tones, but ignore data. They have worked themselves up into a frenzy over reports of multiple shots fired the night before.

The stage is set for when another shooting takes place within 24 hours. This is on the other side of Hartford, which is to say, only three miles away. An elderly bystander dies when a teen with a gun tries to flee the scene, striking her with the stolen vehicle he is driving recklessly. Needlessly graphic details about her death are reported by a blogger who has information but poor judgment, seemingly less empathy, and an overt pro-cop agenda.

When I am walking on blood-stained sidewalks — such as I did following the South Green shooting — I am not interested in politics. I am not at all interested in hearing the lies about how new leadership will cure these ills. Such fantastic delusion. Maybe I could take these promises more seriously if those ever making them were present in the community working to solve the issues instead of stationed inside campaign headquarters.

To put it another way, if you are going to throw crime into your campaign at the last minute and profess to have a plan, then I am expecting a plan. That is, I want to see details. I want studies. I want to know what you have observed other mid-sized cities doing to successfully reduce violent crime. Anything short of that is blowing smoke, and frankly, a tacky and desperate grab for votes.

To see if the city was truly “out of control,” I gathered some numbers for comparison.

Using HartfordData, I found stats for three types of incidents during two years each of the three most recent administrations. Though I hoped to use data from an early year in all administrations, such information was not available until 2005 forward, leaving out the beginning of the Perez years.

The change in number of shots fired is what might look most dramatic, and what also needs more explanation. The gray columns represent all valid reports of gun shots — whether those were called in to the police or discovered in other ways. The yellow columns show only the valid gunshot reports made to police via Hartford’s ShotsSpotter detection equipment. It was not until June 2011 (Segarra administration) that ShotSpotter made its way to Hartford. Then, about three square miles were covered by the sensors. Five years later (Bronin administration), there was a significant expansion. In all, 200 sensors would detect shots over 11.25 square miles. That explains the enormous jump in shots reported. If you subtract the number of ShotSpotter reports from total reports, you are left with a less startling number.

What would make this information more complete would be a comparison under Perez that we cannot get as ShotSpotter was not yet in the city. Are people calling the police less often now because we are hearing fewer gunshots, or are we not calling them in because we assume that technology is going to do that work for us?

Another small point: many reports of gunshots are made by residents and ShotSpotter that get the designation of “unconfirmed.” That data is also available.

Here is the most recent crime data provided by the Hartford Police Department:

Hartford is faring better now than at many points in the last several decades when it comes to violent crime, but we should be looking toward real solutions to do better. We do not need to sensationalize crime to work toward reducing it.