Tagged: homicides

Though the national homicide rate has declined over the past decades, many Michigan cities are struggling to follow the trend.

Dayne Walling, Mayor of Flint and Gregg Barak, Professor of Criminology at Eastern Michigan University and author of "Violence and Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding" spoke with Cyndy about the state’s homicides.

“Homicide rates across the country are down to about 4.8 per 100,000…Here in Michigan, the state as a whole is at 6.2. In Detroit, it’s eight times higher…I’m not that surprised in terms of Detroit. Its rate today is no higher than it was when we were identified as the murder capital of the world,” said Barak.

DETROIT (AP) - Several of Michigan's largest cities already have eclipsed last year's homicide totals.

Murders in Detroit, Saginaw and Grand Rapids are up over 2011. The 66 homicides reported through Monday morning in Flint are tied with that city's 2011 tally.

WOOD-TV reports that Grand Rapids reached its 18th homicide Saturday night. The number still is preliminary. There were 17 murders there last year, compared to nine each in 2009 and 2010. Grand Rapids recorded 23 murders in 2006.

The Flint Journal reports this morning about three killings over the weekend, bring the total number of homicides to 50:

Three homicides in as many days has brought the city's total to 50 slayings for the year.

The latest was a shooting and hit and run that left one man dead...

The city didn't record its 50th homicide last year until late October.

In 2010, the city set a record for the number of homicides at 66. That's in a city with a shrinking population.

Flint Emergency Manager Mike Brown says the city plans to work more with the state police, as well as local and federal prosecutors, to fight the city’s crime problem.

The plan calls for establishing Flint not only as a ‘safe city’ in reality, but also in people’s perception.

Using outside law enforcement help is a short term part of the plan.   Long term, Brown says the city needs to raise millions of dollars in new revenue to hire more police officers and firefighters.

The number of people who died on the job in Michigan increased in 2010.  Michigan State University researchers track workplace deaths.   Researcher Ken Rosenman says agriculture recorded the most on-the-job fatalities last year.  He says workplace homicides also more than doubled in 2010. 

In all, 123 people died in the workplace in Michigan last year. 

Rosenman insists most, if not all, job deaths could have been prevented.  

The Center for Homicide Research published a report on homicides in Flint. It concluded that Flint passed its previous record of 61 homicides (set in 1986) "in large part to a process of contagion."

In other words, once a homicide occurs, it can spark others, spreading like a disease.

Just a day after tying a record set in 1986, Flint recorded its 62nd homicide of the year. The body of a man was found slumped over in a car parked on a city street.

At a news conference this morning, before the latest murder victim was found, Flint Mayor Dayne Walling blamed the spike in violence in his city on the loss of jobs.