Officials say city’s efforts to suppress violence are succeeding
Now that the first four months of the year have passed, local officials are cautiously optimistic about the state of violent crime in Chattanooga as the homicide rate remains at a comparatively low level.
So far this year, the city has seen six homicides, one of which was justified. It’s the lowest total by this time since the Times Free Press began recording the city’s homicides on The Toll, an online homicide database. At this point in 2017, there were already 13 homicides, and the year before that, there had been 12.
Authorities point to a number of contributing factors that have had compounding effects on the violent crime rate in Chattanooga.
Sgt. Josh May, head of the Chattanooga Police Department’s new gun unit, said the reduction is the hard-won result after a prolonged, full court press on multiple fronts that align with the “focused deterrence” model.
Over the last several years, both city officials and leadership in the police department have been advocating for the strategy, which targets the few groups and individuals police say are driving violence while offering support to those looking for a way out.
Chattanoogans got to see that plan in action in March when a Hamilton County grand jury indicted 54 Athens Park Bloods gang members, marking the first time a street gang in Hamilton County has been prosecuted as a criminal enterprise under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.
“That sent some shockwaves because now a lot of these guys don’t know who’s next,” said May, who formerly headed the city’s anti-gang efforts. “And there’s going to be a next. Some of these groups think we’re sleeping on them, but we’re not sleeping on them at all.
“That’s progress. It doesn’t matter if you’re a [Gangster Disciple], a Crip, a Blood, whatever, if your group’s out here doing this, we’re focused in on it and we’re not going to forget. We’re not going to stop.”
Not only are homicides down, but overall shootings are, as well; there have been 22 shootings so far this year. Chattanooga saw 87 by the end of 2017, 109 in 2016, and 104 in 2015.
Seven of the Athens Park Bloods indicted in March face charges on five homicides including the high-profile slaying of Bianca Horton. May pointed to their arrests as an example of the work being done to pull bad actors off the streets and said a few quality cases built through “intelligence-led policing” can go a long way toward reducing the number of shots fired.
“Our street crimes, our narcotics guys have really been able to identify people who are driving violence,” he said. “When an incident does happen and there is a homicide or a shooting, our major crimes investigators are there. They’re usually working two to three at a time on every case so they’re covering all the bases.”
But investigators aren’t just dedicating all their resources to new slayings. The same attention is being paid to older cases, like Horton’s, so investigators can connect them to other acts of violence and bring persistent shooters to justice.
“It’s easy to put one [case] on the back burner and kind of forget about it,” he said. “It’s just human nature to face what’s in front of you because it’s hot, the leads are new. But they have been gearing down on the older cases, as well.”
Victor Miller, homicide unit supervisor in the Chattanooga Police Department, said communication between the public and local law enforcement, as well as coordination among a number of other agencies, also has helped drive down violence.
“I think that’s a direct reflection of the teamwork that we’ve built as well as the relationships our unit has built with the community,” he said.
It doesn’t hurt that community members have been using the department’s homicide tip line with increasing regularity. That channel of communication was opened in June of 2017, and callers already have helped investigators clear several unsolved cases.
“We have to work together. I think that you see we’re making more arrests,” Miller said. “I think the community sees that and criminals see that and they know there’s a high probability right now that if they commit a crime they will be arrested.”
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said the city has made an effort to provide the police department with the resources necessary to tackle crime in the most effective way possible — by dedicating personnel and equipment to the people and neighborhoods that need it most. Additionally, officers have made their own investments in the areas they patrol.
“We have put significant resources into technology, building out a new Real-Time Intelligence Center,” he said. “We’ve changed and become more community-oriented in our policing. Integrated more into the community.”
“On top of all that, obviously, we’re having some extremely positive economic times. That means that we have more people working and our poverty rate is down. Put all those things together and we’ve been seeing a downward trend over the last couple of years.”
The numbers are good news, but Berke said one of the best indicators he’s had of late has been that residents are openly chatting with him about improvements they’ve seen up and down their streets.
“They’re noticing it, and ultimately, you want people to not only be safer but to feel safer,” he said. “I hear from people that they’ve noticed a difference. That’s one of the most heartening things I can hear.”
Still to come in Chattanooga is May’s gun unit, which is scheduled for rollout on June 1. The team will focus on ballistic matches from evidence gathered at scenes in order to track gun crimes, identifying consistently used firearms and the offenders who use them.
May highlighted some of the capabilities of such a unit in a presentation last week to upcoming police cadets, showing that investigators have identified close to 200 different firearms used in crimes across the city since January 2017. He said that, of the firearms seized by officers in that time, almost 70 percent that have been connected to crime scenes through ballistic matches came from gang members.
May said he’s optimistic about the prospects of a unit dedicated to gun violence, but said community members and officers shouldn’t discount the work being done on the street level by patrol officers to build relationships with the people they’re meant to protect. Officers dancing at block parties and playing basketball on the corner represent a cultural shift for the department.
“Seventeen years ago when I started, that wasn’t the way things were,” he said. “That’s how the mentality has changed. Building those relationships is key because that keeps the cycle going. Through that you get the tips, the nicknames. Where someone may be who’s out here terrorizing the street.”
May wants to see a continued reduction in the homicide rate this year and he sees the numbers so far as a good sign, but he also said the summer months are typically the busiest of the year and there’s no telling what’s coming. Community policing helps everyone prepare for when the worst comes, he said.
“The problem is this: you’re only one small spark away from a big beef happening and things kind of going awry,” he said.
“You’re hoping that you’ve planted enough roots out here to quell anything like that that would happen and be able to stop it before anything spirals out of control.”