LR’s 11 homicides in April make it 1 of deadliest months

Wednesday marked the end of one of the deadliest months in recent Little Rock history.

Between an April 3 patricide in southwest Little Rock and the shooting of a man on Sanford Drive on April 30, police officials recorded 11 homicides in the month, nine of which occurred in a nine-day span, and equaled the total number of homicides from the prior three months to bring the city’s total for the year to 22.

April’s total tied monthly figures recorded only twice since 1990, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of internal and departmental data.

Over the first four months of last year, there were only eight killings, and by the end of 2013 homicide detectives recorded 36 total killings.

But there is no sinister plot or single driver pushing these numbers up, according to Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas.

And with no rogue element to focus on, no gang feud to squash or a serial killer to track, Thomas said, there is only so much his department can do with a spate of homicides that are as random as they are senseless.

For example, in April there were two domestic homicides involving mentally ill suspects: one caused by ill will between a blogger and a former Little Rock officer, who died in a confrontation over the blogger’s hot dog stand; and another that happened when a man shot his girlfriend in the head, the man saying it was an accident, according to department officials.

“You’re at the mercy of where people encounter one another, how … it escalate[d] to that point,” Thomas said. “I can’t fairly predict to you what spouse is going to stab and kill another spouse next month and in what apartment building … it just can’t be done, but it’s a component of what we’re dealing with.”

Appearing before the city Board of Directors earlier last week, just hours before the Wednesday shooting of Jason Harris that closed out the deadly month, Thomas said homicides have been widely distributed throughout the city.

Ten of the killings this year occurred in the department’s southwest division, seven happened in the downtown division, and five occurred in the northwest division, the department’s largest.

“It’s unusual for us at this point in the year. … It’s an exceptionally high number for us. Our general trend has been [going] down over the years,” Thomas told the city officials.

Homicides peaked in Little Rock in 1993 when investigators recorded 76 killings in the city.

Since then, they have gone down, hitting a low of 28 in 2010, only to slowly rebound over the next few years to a high of 47 in 2012, according to records maintained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Thomas’ detectives have made arrests in 18 of the 22 killings this year, or almost 82 percent, and all but one of the April homicides have led to an arrest.

Where waves of robberies, burglaries or break-ins occur at greater volumes and thus give police commanders greater data to work with in order to interdict the crimes, homicides are harder to get ahead of, Thomas said.

The only real proactive policing approach available to Thomas is paying attention to areas with high rates of nondomestic aggravated assaults. By increasing both presence and visibility in neighborhoods experiencing “hot spots” of shootings, stabbings and other violent disturbances, officers can minimize the opportunities for a heated dispute to turn deadly.

“An aggravated assault in essence is an unsuccessful homicide. All the precursors are there: There is some type of disagreement, there is some type of weapon and some type of threat of serious injury,” Thomas said. Predicting homicides in such environments “is kind of like trying to predict a tornado. You know the conditions are right but you don’t know the exact path that tornado will take …where it will touch down.”

In an effort to do so, Thomas recommitted the department’s mobile squads to increase visibility in areas ripe for shootings.

To make sure the day-today crimes of burglaries and break-ins don’t go unheeded in areas abandoned by those mobile squads, Thomas said, he has authorized overtime for officers willing to pick up extra shifts in those patrol areas.

Historically, officers looking to interdict shootings go to the areas in Little Rock with the highest number of aggravated assaults, those areas between University Avenue and Woodrow Street and between Interstate 630 and Asher Avenue.

But Thomas pointed out that of all 22 homicides this year, only two occurred in those neighborhoods, and one of those, a shooting outside an Asher Avenue nightclub, is under review by the county prosecutor and may be ruled justified.

Only a pair of the killings so far this year appear to be gang-related, according to Thomas.

The April 21 death of Bernard Sherrod at 1701 N. Bryant St. and the April 26 fatal shooting of Kegan Hilliard near Sherrod’s Longcoy Street home were retaliatory, according to police officials. The two victims were members of the same group and the shootings appear to be the result of turmoil within the same group.

In a sense, Thomas said, organized gang violence of the kind that plagued Little Rock in the early 1990s is easier to police, or at least predict, than the killings recorded recently.

“[Gangs are] more dangerous and impactful for everyone involved but it is easier to show turf … and see where you can apply resources,” Thomas said.

If the current rate holds steady, the city would not only surpass last year’s total, it would reach well into the 60s, numbers not seen since the height of the 1990s gang wars.

Thomas, himself a former homicide investigator, and therefore superstitious, wouldn’t dare speculate about what the year-end totals will be, but he concedes that with summer coming, the risk of more homicides is great.

July is historically the worst month for killings. With schools closed, longer days and later activities, the conditions for homicides are most ripe during the summer months.

Compounding that, Thomas said, is the jail.

Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay had to partly close the jail Tuesday after months of overcrowding prompted by a record high backlog of state prisoners waiting to return to prisons, which are also over capacity.

Holladay said he is committed to finding room for violent felons and domestic batterers, among other crimes, but can’t afford to take on many nonviolent felons and quality-of-life offenders.

Thomas credits Holladay for working with local law enforcement officials to keep immediate violent offenders in lockup but said that just because an offender isn’t violent doesn’t mean he doesn’t pose a threat of violence down the road.

For example, instead of cooling off for a while in jail on felony charges, a drug dealer who just lost his stash and weapon to officers during a narcotics raid is more likely to hit the streets not long after his arrest and could try to do what it takes to recoup the costs of the arrests and even settle things up with whatever informant or witness helped police to make it happen, he said.

“You have individuals who are going to continue on a path of committing criminal offenses. … And there’s always the possibility that what they’re doing will escalate … your best deterrent to that sort of thing is to isolate those individuals,” Thomas said. “We say ‘Oh, we’re just really mad at those [nonviolent offenders], we’re not really scared of them.’ Well, I’m scared of them. … I don’t see how you can say catch-and-release for those types of crimes is a good thing.”

Added Thomas: “We’ll deploy and do the best we can but in no way, shape or form does [the jail limits] make it easier or less dangerous for our officers.”

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April homicides LR

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