Flint, MI– With one day left in the year, Flint has nearly tied its record for yearly homicides.
As of Dec. 29, there have been 67 recorded homicides in the city, which include murder, manslaughter, negligent vehicular homicide, and justifiable homicide.
According to Flint Police Department Sgt. Tyrone Booth, the record number of homicides for Flint was 68 in 2012, when the population was just over 100,000.
Now, with a population of 81,252 as of last year’s census, the homicide rate is even higher.
On July 23, Mayor Sheldon Neeley declared a state of emergency in Flint due to gun violence, and announced a plan to tackle the “public health crisis” which involved hiring more police officers, reopening police mini-stations, and giving community crime grants to local groups.
Since then five police mini-stations have reopened, 22 people have been hired to the police department, and 15 crime grants were given to local groups, Neeley said during his State of the City Address on Dec. 14.
But since the state of emergency declaration, there have been 28 more homicides in the city according to the Flint Police Department’s crime summaries.
Data from the Michigan State Police show that shootings accounted for 91% of the total homicides in Flint this year.
As of Dec. 26, Flint has had 61 fatal shootings, according to MSP. That’s an increase of about 27% from this time last year when there had been 48 fatal shootings.
The city also had several non-fatal shootings, with 217 so far in 2021, which is a slight increase from the year before. Around this time in 2020, there had been 214 non-fatal shootings.
The city’s homicide totals increased by 13.33% from 2020, when there was a total of 60 homicides for the whole year. The totals have been steadily increasing from 46 homicides in 2019, and 31 in 2018, according to the police department’s crime summary data.
The number of homicides this year are more than double what they were in 2018.
During Neeley’s State of the City Address, he said that the increase in homicides follows the national trend.
Homicides in the United States increased almost 30% from 2019 to 2020, and are continuing to rise this year according to an Associated Press report.
Neeley also noted that while homicides are increasing, all other crime in Flint is down which is reflected in the police department’s crime summaries.