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Thread: Homicide Statistics

  1. #1
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    Homicide Statistics

    Memphis Homicides So Far in 2017

    I just went through a detailed report on the homicides reported in my old stomping grounds in Memphis. From January 1, 2017, until August 9, 2017, there were a total of 122 homicides in the city. None of these involved police action, but 2 were ruled justifiable homicides by private citizens.

    In these cases, the weapons used were guns in 98 cases; knives in 9 cases; and other or unknown in 12 cases. Arrests were only made in 42 of the cases, a clearance rate of 34%. Arrests were most common when the motive listed was “domestic” or “argument”. When the motive was “robbery” or “unknown” there was rarely an arrest made. This reflects the difficulty in solving “stranger” murders, in which the victim and the offender are not known to each other. These are most often street robberies and car-jacking incidents.

    The break-down of motives listed was as follows:
    Unknown- 91 cases (usually a robbery or attempted robbery)
    Argument- 11 cases
    Robbery- 10 cases (in these the motive was evident)
    Domestic- 8 cases
    Gang related- 1 case.

    Thus, “Robbery” and “Unknown” accounted for 83% of the homicides. This completely debunks the narrative that most murders are domestics or gang related. They are certainly not. Note that only 1 case was determined to be “gang related”. This shows that by far the greatest threat is from a robbery or unknown (usually turns out to be a robbery or attempted robbery in some form). These are crimes that are committed in public places, such as convenience stores, shopping centers, and office parking lots. Be vigilant, and carry your gear.

  2. #2
    Good (bad) stuff, Tom.

    FYI, with 38,000 fewer residents than Memphis, Baltimore just racked up its 213th murder.

  3. #3
    Tom:

    While I understand and appreciate your point, how many of the "unknowns" can be chalked up to "a South Memphis man" doing South Memphis Man stuff? What I'm getting at is, even though there isn't sufficient evidence to classify it as gang/domestic/dispute/robbery (or at times to even get a warrant issued), is it necessarily fair to categorize them as stranger murders?

    Model Citizen A gets into a completely reasonable, valid, and understandable dispute with Model Citizen B in an apartment complex off Elvis Presley, Model Citizen A gets shot and killed, shooter flees the scene, everybody around gets sudden onset Alzheimer's... What I'd be interested in seeing -- and I don't know how to get stats on that without running NCIC checks and working in Memphis -- is how many of the homicide victims were citizens.

  4. #4
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    "how many of the "unknowns" can be chalked up to "a South Memphis man" doing South Memphis Man stuff?"

    Certainly some of them. However, these murders were distributed all over the city, including way out east. The victims were black, white, and other. Several were white females in "safe" parts of town.

    Things are not the same as 50 years ago, when there were "good neighborhoods" and "bad parts of town". Crime and criminals are mobile, and can occur anywhere.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Givens View Post
    "how many of the "unknowns" can be chalked up to "a South Memphis man" doing South Memphis Man stuff?"

    Certainly some of them. However, these murders were distributed all over the city, including way out east. The victims were black, white, and other. Several were white females in "safe" parts of town.

    Things are not the same as 50 years ago, when there were "good neighborhoods" and "bad parts of town". Crime and criminals are mobile, and can occur anywhere.
    To your bolded, absolutely. It's crept its way out to the suburbs as well -- lots of good robbery/home invasion opportunities from people who are oblivious to that reality. South Memphis is just an area I considered particularly bad when I was there and thus deliberately avoided, rather than a race/gender/location thing. Googling "south Memphis man" says it's still rather busy out there. I'm not in a position to know any inside information from there, though, and I presume you got your information from somewhere other than the Commercial Appeal.

    As to my current location, where I am in a position to know, most of our (thankfully few) murders are either domestics, drug ripoffs, or territorial pisisngs. A city we get a lot of spillover from has results which mirror Memphis's, though the gang-relateds are way up this year as are, unfortunately, "random" homicides/agg assaults.

  6. #6
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    I just skimmed through some of the reports and found these:

    Male victim, 58 yrs old, 2900 block Poplar

    Male victim, 46 yrs old, 6100 block Macon Rd

    Male victim, 33 yrs old, 6:00pm, 1500 block S. Highland

    Male white, 45 yrs old, 1:00pm, 5000 block Covington Way

    Male Asian victim, 9:00pm, 6000 block Macon Cove

    Male victim, 23 yrs old, 8:00pm, 3200 block Ridgeway

    Female white victim, 81 yrs old, 7:00pm, 2100 block Forest Hill Court

    None of these are in the hood, nor in South Memphis. None appeared to be doing thuggery.
    Last edited by Tom Givens; 08-10-2017 at 09:10 PM.

  7. #7
    A robbery could very well be gang activity. Plenty of gang types do robberies, obviously difficult to say what the percentage is either way.
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  8. #8
    The ages of some of the victims and the times at which they were killed are particularly telling, IMO. Slight disagreement re: a few of the locations, though.

    Good info. Thanks.

    Edit: To be clear, I don't dispute that one can be targeted for "stranger" crime anywhere -- and obviously, people are. I do think, however, that based upon my experience in Memphis that the large majority of the homicides involve some variety of poor life choices on the part of the victim and perpetrator.
    Last edited by ssb; 08-10-2017 at 09:25 PM.

  9. #9
    Member busykngt's Avatar
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    Homicide Statistics

    Been thru Memphis many times traveling between Dallas and central KY. Few years ago, missed a turn (due to construction trapping me in the wrong lane). Found myself heading south and needed to turn around, 1 or 2pm. On the cloverleaf entrance ramp, a shoot out takes place ~60 feet in front of me. Young black kid - on foot - is running from the cops. Half dozen cop cars are all around that cloverleaf ramp in the blink of an eye. The kid had jumped down the embankment from the overpass and had taken a shot at one of the police cars - he missed. Several cops unleashed a hail of bullets at the kid - they all missed too! The kid was smart enough to drop his pistol and the cops handcuffed him. I was stopped right in the middle of it - I looked around for the Hollywood movie cameras but then decided it was "real life" in the big city of Memphis!
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    Last edited by busykngt; 08-10-2017 at 10:51 PM.

  10. #10
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    Just for comparison, at the end of July we were at 89, and as it happens the same clearance rate (well, 33.71, but close enough). 74 were murders, with the rest being police action (1), non-LEO justified shoot (10), and accidentals (4). Of the 74, 5 were domestic, 14 were arguments, and 7 robberies, so that's all pretty close. 42 were unknown. 7 were drugs.

    I'm sure Tom knows, but for others, motive of "robbery" doesn't preclude a dope, debt, or otherwise targeted attack. Some are truly random/business robberies, of course. Also, the self defense/justified is sometimes bad guy on bad guy type stuff as well. Even the dope man can justifiably shoot the armed home invader.

    Weapons:

    2 blunt force
    2 stabbing
    84 gunshot
    1 not listed

    Of the incidents (remember this is both murders and non-murders) that at least one suspect and one victim are identified, relationships are (rounded to nearest whole number):
    58% - acquaintance
    14% - unknown
    9% - friend
    7% - family
    5% - dating
    5% -stranger
    2% - estranged

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