DETROIT (WWJ) -- Detroit Police Chief James Craig says the number of homicides across the city has slightly risen compared to this time a year ago, and it's largely in part to disputes that could be solved without gun violence, he says.
Speaking at the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Thursday, Craig said for the first time this quarter, the number of deadly shootings has risen. Numbers show there were eight more shootings through the end of July in 2019 than there were in 2018, according to Craig.
And a lot of them could easily be avoided.
"What I would say is the spontaneous arguments – like someone steps on someone's shoe, or someone's looking at someone's girlfriend – there's countless examples where people do insane things by responding with violence," Craig said.
What Craig calls a "significant increase" in the number of argument-based shootings is not isolated to a certain age group, he says.
"And it's not typically gang and group type shootings. We've had shootings that have emanated out of block parties, parties in homes, some bar shootings," he said.
Craig has repeated those words often this summer, including after a violent weekend in mid-June that saw three people killed and 14 injured, with many of the shootings stemming from arguments.
"As these locations are letting out, we recognize that some people have consumed alcohol, arguments start and folks are not using good judgment," Craig said of multiple shootings outside of bars that weekend. "These disputes result in violence and we can see when you talk about three locations, bars, where people lost their lives."
"As you can see when you look at the analysis, too many people are becoming victims based on arguments, disputes that should not be resolved by using a handgun," Craig said in June.
At the time, Craig reported that violent crime was down by 4% across the city compared to early June a year ago. As the number of homicides has now reversed course and risen over the past month and a half, Craig is calling for the disputes to be settled without violence.
While the news on the violence may be disheartening, Craig says the good news is that there has been a 34% drop in carjackings across the city compared to this time last year.
