Seandell Holliday had one wish: he wanted to live at least until he was 21. It didn’t happen. This teenager died at the age of 16 one evening in May in Chicago, struck down by a bullet in the chest fired by another young person, after an altercation. A few months earlier, at the request of one of his teachers, he had written a list of his ten goals, including opening a recording studio, taking care of his family… and reaching his 21st birthday. “I asked him, ‘Why did you write that?’ told Vondale Singleton, his teacher. He replied: ‘Because you see so many young people die here, get shot for stupid things'”. More than 800 homicides occurred last year in Chicago, the highest increase in 25 years, to which must be added 3,561 incidents with shootings, 1,415 more than in 2019!
In recent weeks, the media around the world have not stopped talking about the massacre in Buffalo (New York State), in which a young white man shot ten black people in a supermarket and that of the elementary school in Uvalde ( Texas), where the gunman armed with war rifles shot dead 19 children and two teachers. But mass killings represent a very small percentage, less than 2%, of gun casualties. In 2020, 45,222 Americans died from gunfire, or 124 deaths per day, an all-time high. The majority (54%) were suicides, and 43% – nearly 20,000 – murders, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. But these almost anonymous deaths very rarely make the headlines.
The United States has experienced an epidemic of particularly deadly violence in the past two years. The number of firearm crimes has skyrocketed by 35% in 2020 and is expected to show a further, albeit more moderate, increase of around 7% in 2021 (figures are still provisional). “The rise in homicide rates is less marked, notes Thomas Abt, member of the think tank of the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). But it is too early to rejoice, because no one knows if we will return to the level anterior, which was lower.”
Rural America also affected
Urban areas are the most affected. In 2021, the number of murders in 27 cities increased by 5% compared to 2020 and by 44% compared to 2019, according to a study by the CCJ. Only good news, despite this bloodbath, we are still far from the statistical peaks of thirty years ago. Last year, the crime rate in these towns was just over half that of the early 1990s.
More surprisingly, the wave of violence is also overwhelming rural America. As in Marion County, South Carolina, a conservative corner of 29,000 inhabitants dotted with a hundred churches and tobacco fields. Mary Ann Elvington, an 80-year-old retired teacher, was kidnapped from her home last year by a man who forced her to drive him, then shot and killed her before giving up her job. body. The county recorded fifteen homicides in two years, a number equivalent to that of the previous ten years combined. “I’ve never seen such numbers before,” confessed to the wall street journal Sheriff Brian Wallace, more accustomed to hunting down chicken thieves and drunks than murderers.
Infographics
Dario Ingiusto / L’Express
The causes are multiple. First, there is the impact of the pandemic. In the countryside, all places of socialization – churches, restaurants, fairs – have closed. In deprived urban neighborhoods, job losses, stress and isolation have increased with the confinement, while access to support programs has been reduced.
The climate of violence also worsened with the death of George Floyd, killed by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, and the multiple demonstrations that followed. “These troubles have created a gap between neighborhoods and the police, explains Thomas Abt. However, often, when mistrust sets in, criminal violence develops.” In some cases, the police reduced their interventions; in others, it has been taken over by protests. At the same time, especially in the big cities, many police officers have returned their badges. Retirements increased by 45%, and resignations by 18% between April 2020 and April 2021, according to a survey of 200 police services. In New York, 2,600 members of the NYPD quit their jobs in 2020. Finally, another factor, arms sales have exploded. It has sold more than 42 million in two years. However, more than three quarters of murders in 2021 were committed with a pistol.
“Surge of anger”
This outbreak of crime has claimed another victim: the very progressive Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, has just been the subject of an impeachment procedure by the voters, after being elected two years ago. and half. They accuse him of having aggravated the climate of insecurity by being too lax. He limited the legal proceedings for petty offenders, reduced the length of sentences, emptied the prisons… The problems of delinquency in San Francisco began long before his arrival. Neighbors have complained for years about open drug sales, thefts, burglaries, vandalism, not to mention the huge homeless population. But since 2020, attacks on Asians judged by some responsible for the “Chinese virus”, as Donald Trump has dubbed it, have multiplied. Vicha Ratanapakdee, for example, an 84-year-old Thai immigrant who was taking his morning walk, was thrown to the ground. He died a few days later from his injuries. Chesa Boudin called the behavior of her attacker, a 19-year-old black man, “a fit of anger” and did not charge him with a hate crime. Which inflamed the Asian community and probably contributed to his dismissal.
No wonder in these conditions that several new mayors have been elected on security issues. In New York, Mayor Eric Adams, a former officer of the notorious New York City Police Department (NYPD) has pledged to recreate the plainclothes police unit dismantled in 2020 after gaining a bad reputation for its use excessive force towards blacks and Latinos. The mayor of Atlanta has promised to hire hundreds of new police officers. Obviously, the most logical solution would be to regulate access to weapons. Congress is working on a few measures which, if passed, will have the merit of being the first substantive legislation in thirty years. But their impact should be very limited. Republicans categorically refuse to raise the legal age to 21, to ban sales of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.
In the meantime, the municipalities are trying by all means to stem the violence, which is concentrated in a few neighborhoods where the majority of homicides are committed. The problem is that there is no consensus on what drove the drop in crime in the 2000s. “This question has been analyzed by eminent experts, and we still have not conclusive answer”, continues Thomas Abt.
Effective solutions?
Many cities try to concentrate the police on a few hot spots, to develop prevention programs, to restore a minimum of trust between police officers and local residents. Washington has recruited social mediators responsible for managing disputes and avoiding escalations. In Baltimore, a program helps recidivists on parole to access therapies or detoxification cures. New York and Philadelphia have increased the number of streetlights, cleaned up garbage and created parks in vacant lots. In Ohio, the Columbus police plan to create neighborhood patrols equipped with radios to monitor their neighborhood.
But streetlights or group therapy alone won’t prevent shootings. Especially since in 2020 40% of the weapons sold were acquired by individuals, in particular from minorities, who did not previously possess them. And the trend continues. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, more than 3 million people in the first half of 2021 purchased a revolver or rifle for the first time in their life.