Killings may hit record levels
81 homicides in the first half of 2021 rival stats from early 1990s
With 81 homicides in the first six months of 2021, San Antonio is on track for one of its deadliest years in nearly three decades.
Homicides rose from 75 during the same period a year ago, an 8 percent increase, according to preliminary data from the San Antonio Police Department.
Five years ago, San Antonio had recorded 73 homicides by this point on the calendar — and that year (2016) ended with a total of 149 slayings, making it the city’s deadliest year since 1994, when there were 194.
This year’s rise in homicide mirrors a trend seen in many major U.S. cities. It began last year amid the economic and social hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, crime figures across the country decreased in 2020.
“It’s important to note that homicides are part of a much bigger picture of the state of violent crime in San Antonio,” SAPD spokeswoman Mariah Medina said in a statement. “Our internal
numbers show, preliminarily, violent crime as a whole — homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — was down for the first five months of this year in comparison to the same period last year. Similarly, we saw a decrease in property crimes.”
The new homicide tally, as of Monday, is subject to slight adjustments because some deaths still under investigation could later be classified as homicides.
The count also does not include what the FBI calls “justifiable homicides.” Under the bureau’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, homicides are deemed justifiable when a police officer kills a suspect in the line of duty or a private individual kills someone who was committing a crime.
San Antonio’s latest homicide figure comes after a particularly violent threeday holiday weekend, when at least nine people were killed.
Deadly standoff
Among the fatalities: A man shot by five police officers after a standoff near his home on Monday. The confrontation began after the man fired a weapon at family members and a KSAT television crew that was reporting on a house fire at the location.
The man fled to a home in the 300 block of Noria on the city’s near West Side. He ran to the backyard and moved between two sheds throughout the standoff.
Around 3 p.m., officers who had positioned themselves inside the house attempted to lock the back door to keep him from reentering. Police Chief William Mcmanus said the man saw officers locking the door and began firing at them.
The officers returned fire, killing him, Mcmanus said.
“We did not intend to engage the individual,” Mcmanus said Monday. “This was a plan to keep him locked out of the house and make it easier for us to apprehend him.”
The suspect has not been officially identified. Family members identified him as 28-year-old Eduardo Mendez Amezquita.
A string of convictions
Amezquita had been arrested seven times in the last 10 years, Bexar County court records show.
The first time was in January 2011, on two drug charges. He pleaded no contest to one of the charges, meaning he neither admitted nor disputed the charge but acknowledged that there was sufficient evidence to find him guilty.
A judge placed Amezquita on deferred adjudication, which allows defendants to avoid a conviction if they meet requirements set by the court. His probation was later revoked after he failed to meet those requirements, records show.
Amezquita was convicted in three subsequent criminal cases — of drunk driving, burglary and assault causing bodily injury of a family member.
For the drunk driving conviction, he was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $500. For the assault, he was sentenced to 11 months and fined $4,000.
The judge in the burglary case sentenced Amezquita to four years in prison. He was released in December 2020 after serving half his sentence.
‘Risky behavior’
Homicides in San Antonio have generally declined since the early 1990s, when the city was dubbed the nation’s “Drive-by Shooting Capital.” In 1993, the city had 220 killings and a rate of 22 homicides per 100,000 people.
In 2016, the numbers again shot up. In response, Mcmanus launched a violent crime task force to pursue violent suspects with lengthy criminal records rather than focus on geographic hot spots, as the department had in the past.
“Crime doesn’t just happen in one section of the city, and we don’t want to target one section of the city,” Mcmanus said then. “We don’t want to ‘overpolice.’ We have our intelligence unit detectives talking about who we need to target — people, not areas.”
By the end of 2017, homicides had decreased 16 percent — though that year’s total was the city’s second highest since 1994.
The 2017 homicide count included the deaths of 10 immigrants who were smuggled across the U.s.mexico border and held in an overheated semitrailer, where they died of heat exposure and asphyxiation.
San Antonio homicides dropped in 2018 and 2019.
The number rose 22 percent last year, although the per capita homicide rate was significantly lower than during previous spikes: about 8 homicides per 100,000 people.
At the time, Mcmanus said it was difficult to pinpoint why homicides increased, though he suspected many deaths could be blamed on family violence or “risky behavior,” such as drug use and gang involvement.
Criminology experts say it’s normal for crime to fluctuate from year to year because of various factors, including changes in economic conditions, police staffing, gang-related activity, police-community relations and general trust in government.
They have attributed the most recent nationwide surge in homicides to higher unemployment, racial unrest and stress caused by the pandemic. Experts noted that the pandemic kept many families in close quarters, making already volatile and abusive relationships worse.
“The unfortunate fact is that while numbers show a decrease in crimes, crime is still occurring,” said Medina, the SAPD spokeswoman. “Our primary concern is for the victims of these offenses and ensuring justice in each and every case.”