By Adrienne Schwisow, The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) -- The city continues to experience violence at a rate surpassing most of America’s large cities, and leaders say they will keep combining tough law enforcement with ratcheted-up displays of community disgust in efforts to make the streets safer.
They’re relying on a host of projects and initiatives, with missions that range from slapping gun-law violators with stiff federal prison sentences to providing high school students with conflict resolution training and having Baptist preachers patrol the streets.
“The law enforcement is there,” said Carl Taylor, a criminologist at Michigan State University who studies Detroit. “But the people have to decide that they’re not going to put up with this kind of thug mentality and behavior anymore. The police can only do so much.”
Authorities were still searching Wednesday for the gunman who got out of a car and started shooting toward a crowd gathered around some women who had been fist-fighting in a city neighborhood Tuesday night. Three men were killed. Three other people were hospitalized, with one still in critical condition Wednesday.
Police said the wounded appeared to be innocent bystanders.
Also bystanders were many of the nine shot last week when a man opened fire, apparently after an argument, in a crowded downtown plaza during the city’s annual fireworks celebration. Two people remained hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday.
Nine more people were shot during bouts of gunfire in two different neighborhood shootings Sunday. One person was killed, city spokesman James Tate said.
Activists said the number of people involved in the recent shootings is unusually high, but the pattern isn’t abnormal.
“I guess it seems extreme, but it isn’t. We have multiple shootings all the time,” said Clementine Barfield, director of Save Our Sons and Daughters, a group that works with victims of violent crimes.
She said many people living in the affected neighborhoods are too scared to confront gun-toting young people who rule the streets.
“This city has been traumatized by so many deaths and so many years of violence over time that we’re seeing the repercussions now. Children grow up not knowing what’s normal. They don’t know how to solve their problems. And the first thing we have to get them to learn is that they shouldn’t have a gun,” Barfield said.
At the city’s worst, Detroit recorded 714 murders in 1974, earning the nickname “Murder City.” The murder rate fell fairly steadily during the 1990s, mirroring a national trend, and dropped in 2003 to 361 killings from 402 the year before.
At the same time, the city’s population continued to decline, so the per capita murder rate was still among the highest in the country. And FBI statistics put Detroit among the most violent large cities, with 205 killings so far this year, 157 committed with guns.
The number of shootings is increasing: In 2003 police recorded 1,032 nonfatal shootings, up from 910 in 2002. Halfway through 2004 police have logged 647 nonfatal shootings, and say they are seeing a new kind of gangster mentality in which gunmen spray bullets to send a message of dominance or intimidate witnesses.
Most shootings are prosecuted in state court, but federal prosecutors started taking more gun cases in 2002 as part of the “Project Safe Neighborhoods,” initiative, in which felons caught with guns, or the combination of drugs and guns, qualify for significantly larger sentences.
In 2002, federal prosecutors in Detroit had 144 cases referred to them, most from Detroit, and secured an average sentence of 5 1/2 years in prison. In 2003, 199 cases were referred, with an average sentence of just more than nearly eight years, and so far this year 134 cases have been referred, with an average sentence of about nine years.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins renewed his commitment to the program Wednesday and said it is working.
A similar program, “Project Exile”, is widely credited with helping to bring down the murder and violent crime rate in Richmond, Va., during the late 1990s.
In response to the increased violence in Detroit this year, city officials have announced renewed efforts to flush out criminals and plans to launch conflict resolution classes in high schools. A group of influential Baptist ministers announced the start of volunteer patrols through neighborhoods.
Barfield said it’s not enough.
“We don’t need a preacher patrol. We need them to go knock on doors, go directly to the drug houses, to the people who are in crisis,” she said. “They need to challenge this evil, let people know that there’s another way.”