DETROIT (WWJ) -- Detroit police are looking for a number of suspects after a violent weekend in the city.
There were more than a dozen reported shootings in Detroit over the weekend, including three fatal shootings and 14 non-fatal shootings, police chief James Craig said on Monday.
All three fatal shootings stemmed from arguments that occurred outside of bars -- one at Sweet Soul Bistro on McNichols west of the John C. Lodge Freeway, one at Mandee's in the 11th precinct and one downtown Detroit outside a strip club called Legends on Congress between Beaubien and Brush Streets, south of the popular Greektown area.
In the downtown shooting around 2 a.m. Sunday, witnesses reported hearing two men arguing before gunfire rang out. A 48-year-old man was shot in the chest, leg and back and he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Two other people -- a man and a woman -- sustained non-life-threatening injuries in that incident.
The suspect is still on the loose, but Craig said authorities believe the suspect and the victim have a connection. He said police will be paying close attention to bars.
"As these locations are letting out, we recognize that some people have consumed alcohol, arguments start and folks are not using good judgement," Craig said at a news conference Monday. "These disputes result in violence and we can see when you talk about three locations, bars, where people lost their lives."
As all three fatal shootings, as well as several of the non-fatal shootings, stemmed from arguments, Craig says curbing gun violence in the city comes down to how people handle disputes -- people should not be so quick to resort to gun violence.
Overall, Craig says violent crime is down by 4% across the city compared to this time last year. The number of homicides has decreased by eight, while non-fatal shootings are up by three in comparison to the same time in 2018.
"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.
The police chief says violence can also be curbed by cracking down on traffic.
"One of the things we're going to do – we're going to be highly mobilized and visible. One of the complaints that I, and I know that others have had the same complaint, about individuals who are speeding, driving recklessly in our city. We know about the number of fatalities as result of collisions – but what's amazing is when we overlay crime patterns with traffic enforcement, it can have an impact in reducing crime. So we're going to continue to deploy that as a short-term strategy."
At least one of the shootings over the weekend stemmed from a road rage incident, while one was related to domestic violence and another was related to narcotics.
Asked what he would say to anyone scared to go downtown Detroit and have fun, specifically in the Greektown area, after hearing reports of violence, Craig said: "Come enjoy the city."
"I was in Miami a few weeks ago at a major city chiefs conference. They have violence, too," Craig said. "And I saw it. And that's not minimizing the violence that we've seen. Certainly, we've read about the violence in the city of Dallas, which is typically a quieter city than ours – 41 homicides over one month."
Craig said many suspects in recent violence -- including a shooting along Monroe Street in Greektown that was caught on surveillance video -- have come from the suburbs into the city. The victims in the shooting outside of Legends were all from the suburbs, according to Craig.
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