Gun incidents rose 40 percent in Minneapolis last year, the first significant jump in years following a long-term downward trend in gun-related cases.
The gun incidents in the city report being released Wednesday include people being shot or shot at, reports of gunshot wounds or a gun used in a crime.
Two top law enforcement officials said it’s too soon to say whether the report’s findings signaled the beginning of something new in crime, and pointed instead to the long-term decline.
“Minneapolis is on the right track,” said Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who said the city should stick with its strategies for fighting gun crime. Those things include “going after violent offenders, removing illegal guns, working on the gangs and narcotics problems, and most importantly they leverage their partnerships with other agencies,” he said.
Other highlights in the report, called Results Minneapolis, include a rise in cellphone thefts, a rise in police response times and a drop in internal affairs complaints from 1,427 in 2012 to 934 in 2013. The report also said the department, despite being led by a woman for the first time, had a smaller percentage of female officers last year (15 percent) than it did 10 years previously (16.4 percent).
The sharp rise in gun incidents comes at a time when it’s still far too easy for young people to find illegal guns on the street, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said.
“We’re like the kid with a finger in the dike against this flood of guns,” he said. His office built a website, www.changethestoryhennepin.com, that addresses youth and gun violence. It includes the statistic that 15,576 children and teenagers were injured by firearms nationwide in 2010, a rate of one injury every 30 minutes.
"On Tuesday it seemed like the Wild West had come to Minneapolis, with police numbers showing an unnerving 40 percent rise in gun incidents between 2012 and 2013. By Wednesday afternoon, it looked like it might have been a case of bad numbers, not bad people.
ReplyDeleteMPD crime analysts took a closer look at the numbers and found a flaw in the calculations, department spokesman Scott Seroka said Wednesday afternoon. A couple of hours later, Seroka issued new numbers that showed a smaller increase of 8 percent in gun incidents citywide last year."
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/256459011.html
While an eight percent increase isn't good, its a bit better than forty percent. The title of the article says it all,
"Minneapolis police: Oops, gun data are way off mark"
This is the State you cite all the time. Seems dangerous gun incidents are on the rise there as well.
DeleteAnon, violent crime in the state has been decreasing, and is even decreasing in Minneapolis using their local data. The report also documents increased response time and other factors.
DeleteHere is the report, though I'm not sure if this is the corrected version or not.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@citycoordinator/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-123512.pdf
I tend to stay out of Minneapolis, if possible. As with most large cities, there are areas where there is a gang presence.
The headline said gun incidents, but thanks for changing the subject.
DeleteMikeb, you keep forgetting that small changes from year to year don't make a trend. Oh, and notice how the change in numbers is actually much smaller than originally stated?
ReplyDelete