SHOOTINGS IN SAN DIEGO UP 16% THIS YEAR OVER SAME PERIOD IN 2019, DATA SHOW

SDPD recorded 400 firearm assaults through November

It was just before 6 p.m. on Nov. 30, the long Thanksgiving weekend over, and on South 45th Street near Newton Avenue, the month was about to end with a sound that has become increasingly common across San Diego this year: gunshots.

Two men standing on the sidewalk in the Skyline neighborhood were shot when a light-colored sedan drove by, stopped momentarily, and someone inside opened fire. One 44-year-old man was hit in his head; another, 29, hit in the arm. Both survived.

Those were the final gunshots in a month that saw a shooting somewhere in the city about once every three days. The incident on South 45th Street was not unusual, but was part of a larger phenomenon in San Diego this year.

Shootings, fatal and nonfatal, are up substantially, and reports of gunfire are also up considerably, according to data from San Diego police.

The most recent data, which goes through Sept. 30, show there have been 400 assaults with a handgun in the city this year, compared to 345 for the same period last year — an increase of 15.9 percent.

The increase may even be greater. A review of incidents reported in The San Diego Union-Tribune showed at least 22 more shooting incidents in October and November — 11 in each month.

While shootings are up, the number of homicides in San Diego has not increased at the same pace, and in fact declined from last year. Through the end of November there had been 44 homicides in San Diego. Through the same date in 2019, there were 46.

Lt. Shawn Takeuchi, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department, said that without doing a deeper and more comprehensive analysis, he could not give a reason for the increases in shootings so far this year. He pointed to one factor however — the prevalence of fire

arms.

“Certainly, the increases which have been identified are supported by more guns our officers are encountering during their daily duties,” he said in an email.

Other studies this year have shown a strong increase in firearms sales in the state. A report by the UC Davis Firearm Violence Research Center said by midJuly some 110,000 people had purchased firearms in the state, nearly half of them first-time gun owners.

Overall, gun sales surged an estimated 62 percent over last year through November statewide, according to an analysis of background checks run by the National Instant Criminal Background System from data compiled by the publication The Trace.

The increase in shootings in San Diego puts the city in the same category with other large U.S. cities that have reported a rise in shootings this year — though the increase here is far less than elsewhere. Los Angeles has seen a 32 percent increase, Chicago more than 70 percent, New York nearly 50 percent.

Increases in shootings are not limited to large cities: Cincinnati surpassed the total number of shootings in 2019 by September and is on track to record the largest number since it started tracking shootings in 2008. The police chief in Seattle said in October there have been more shootings there than any year in more than a decade.

The decline in homicides in San Diego goes against the grain of other large U.S. cities that have seen sharp increases in homicides this year. In October the FBI reported that nationally homicides increased 15 percent in the first six months of the year. A report from the National Council on Criminal Justice released this month surveyed crimes in 28 cities — San Diego was not among them — and found homicides up 29 percent through October compared to 2019.

Exactly why homicides and shootings rose substantially this year is not simple to pin down, according to the report. Drug crimes, property crimes and nonresidential burglaries all declined in 2020 compared to the previous year, the report said.

Was it the COVID-19 pandemic? The report said homicides spiked in May and June after the pandemic began. While that coincides with the start of racial justice protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the report said the connection between the protests and increase in murders remains “uncertain.”

Cynthia Burke, research and program management director at the San Diego Association of Governments, said it was too early to say why shootings in the city are up and that more analysis has to be done. However Burke said the combined inf luence of the pandemic, protests, and the polarizing and highly-charged election can’t be discounted.

“I think that we would be remiss to say the pandemic is not related at all to the violence we are seeing,” she said. “Between lockdowns, the economic situation — I think a lot of things could be happening that are not a direct causation, but could be inf luencing other things.”