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Once known as the murder capital of America, the City of Detroit is on track to have its fewest homicides in 57 years.
This week, the Detroit Police Department announced Detroit recorded 228 homicides as of Nov. 30 this year — an 18 per cent decrease over the same period last year. In 2018, the city had 261 homicides, the fewest since 1966, when there were 214.
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For the improvement, officials credit a coalition formed in late 2021 between the city, Wayne County, and the state that better co-ordinates law enforcement agencies and the court system. Police also recorded a 13 per cent drop in non-fatal shootings and a 36 per cent drop in carjackings.
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In a news release this week, Detroit Mayor Duggan praised the group’s efforts.
“We are seeing record drops in gun violence in Detroit because every single part of the criminal justice system is getting past COVID obstacles and is now working again,” Duggan said. “I have never seen such a high level of cooperation.”
The report from police said the COVID-19 pandemic caused a disruption in the criminal justice systems. Court dockets backed up, jails were forced to release inmates due to lack of space, and police departments and the prosecutor’s office had a hard time filing vacancies.
The felony gun case backlog in Wayne County Circuit Court has been reduced by 67 per cent from more than 4,000 in January 2022 to 1,330 last month, the report said. Over the same time, the number of felony gun cases pending trial in the 36th District Court was reduced by 80 per cent to 415, allowing criminal cases to proceed “seamlessly to adjudication,” the report said.
“Our Court Team and Judges have demonstrated their commitment to the community through a restructuring plan and full-force effort to return to being on-site following the COVID shutdown, conducting trials every day, directly resulting in a safer community, and positively impacting hundreds of families seeking justice,” said Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Perez Fresard.
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“The Court has joined forces with the coalition to collaborate and seek solutions together, for the benefit of our community. The Court is grateful for its hard-working judges and community members willing to serve as jurors to render fair verdicts in a huge number of trials this year.”
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The Detroit police contract in November 2022 gave officers a $10,000 raise, resulting in the addition of 200 officers in 2023. The new Wayne County sheriff’s office contract provided a 15 per cent increase, as well as a 24 per cent increase for starting deputies as the office begins to fill 200 vacancies.
“This collaboration is unique in that issues are identified, solutions discussed, and these solutions are implemented. It is not just talk, talk, talk,” said Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy.
“The people at the table are the decision makers and significant work is done at each meeting. We have and continue to tackle serious issues — gun violence, lack of resources, backlogs, training, recruitment and retention, police officer no shows, and other system failures that needed fixing. Many of these are long standing problems that we have been successfully tackling in a very meaningful way.”
Annual homicides in Detroit peaked at 714 in 1974. That year, the city gained a national reputation as the murder capital of the United States.
tcampbell@postmedia.com
twitter.com/wstarcampbell
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