Despite slayings, year’s crime down so far, PB chief tells panel

Despite a recent rash of homicides, overall crime in Pine Bluff has trended downward by double digits the first four months of 2020, according to statistics presented to the Pine Bluff Public Safety Committee on Wednesday.

Statistics showed 254 overall crimes reported in April 2020 compared with 366 reported in April 2019, a drop of 30%, according to Pine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant.

But, Sergeant said, four homicides reported in the month of April brought the total number from the period of Jan. 1 to April 30 to eight homicides, three less than in the same time period last year. In 2019, the city went on to have 28 homicides by the time the year ended.

Since May 1, two more homicides have brought the total for the year to 10.

“That sort of erases the positivity of the decrease in overall crime,” Sergeant said.

The chief noted that because two homicide cases involved two victims each, they are being investigated as eight separate cases, and he said arrests have been made in six of those cases so far.

The latest arrest, according to a release from the Pine Bluff Police Department, occurred on Wednesday afternoon with the arrest of Leashebia Davis, 39, of Pine Bluff, in the shooting death of Elvis Kendal, 38, on Monday. Davis faces a first-degree murder charge.

Kendal, according to police, was found suffering from gunshot wounds in a car at the intersection of West 33rd Avenue and South Hazel Street shortly after 6 p.m. Monday. He was transported to Jefferson Regional Medical Center where he later died of his wounds.

Sergeant said none of the homicide cases appear to be linked.

“We may have one that was gang-related, I think one we’re looking at is drug-relat

ed, and I’ve got a few in there that are domestic related,” he said. “But of these eight incidents, we’ve made arrests in six of them.”

In other categories of crimes against persons, rapes and reported rapes dropped only slightly, from 14 reported in the first four months of 2019 to 13 reported in the same time period of 2020.

Robberies and assaults, however, showed significant declines compared with the first four months of 2019 and 2020. Robbery reports dropped from 31 in 2019 to 22 in 2020, aggravated assault reports dropped from 115 reported during the time period in 2019 to 95 during the same time period in 2020, and simple assault reports declined from 440 in 2019 to 358 in 2020.

Property crime reports showed the greatest declines for the January through April time periods of 2019 and 2020. Commercial burglary reports dropped by more than half, from 64 in 2019 to 30 in 2020. Residential burglary reports dropped from 169 reported in 2019 to 108 in 2020. Theft reports declined from 484 in 2019 to 367 in 2020, and motor vehicle theft reports dropped from 69 in 2019 to 54 in 2020.

Residential burglary reports showed the greatest drop in any category for the month of April, dropping from 35 reported in April 2019 to just 10 reports in April of 2020.

“Would you attribute the residential burglary numbers because more people are at home?” asked Council Member Joni Alexander, a member of the Public Safety Committee.

“I would,” said Sergeant. “Generally, most burglaries happen during the day when people are at work, so that could be one of the factors.”

Sergeant said that since the weather warmed up, police have been dealing with one particular category of problems, as younger people have gotten more active.

“We’re seeing where the younger generation are getting out in these car clubs,” he said. “They’re racing, doing burnouts, and all of these kinds of illegal situations that are going on. Last Sunday, this thing magnified to a level to where, when I was out observing what was going on, in my 25 years as a police officer, I’ve never seen what I saw then.”

Sergeant said on Sunday, police wrote about 70 citations for curfew violations, impounded several vehicles and wrote tickets for reckless driving and other moving traffic violations.

“That was the start of some things that we’re going to continue to see throughout the rest of the summer, dealing with that type of mischief,” he said. “But we’re going to be in a better position to deal with it.”

Sergeant said part of the problem on Sunday was that police were outnumbered.

“As soon as we would get to one location, we may be dealing with 50 to 60 violators, but by the time we’d get there we’d only have three or four while the rest of them would race off to another location,” he said. “By the time we got one situation cleared up we had to go to the next one.”

He said police eventually were able to corral the group in Martin Luther King Park and seal off the exits, then start writing tickets as they allowed people out one by one.

“We had some people try to drive their cars out along the railroad tracks by MLK Park,” Sergeant said. “Union Pacific had to bring bulldozers out to move those cars.”

He said the Police Department is implementing measures to deal with the activity, but said he did not wish to elaborate in a public venue.

Council Member Win Trafford, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, noted that Little Rock had modified its curfew, rolling it back to midnight to 5 a.m., and asked if the same should be considered in Pine Bluff.

“I spoke with the mayor about this and our decision is that we should not change the curfew at this time,” Sergeant said.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Trafford said. “I’ve been getting some questions from people who have told me they changed it in Little Rock, but we aren’t going to do everything Little Rock does. We’re our own city.”