Murder in America: Drive By Shootings

I am concerned about the rising tide of violence in America.  Yesterday I wrote a diary I titled Murder in America.  In this diary I analyzed the presidential candidates positions on crime and drugs.  I was shocked at how few candidates offer positions and real responses to these problems.  I doing the research for that diary, I came across an interesting study on drive-By shootings published by the Violence Policy Center.  

One commenter responded with a very succinct rephrasing of this diary:

Local crime is just as important to a citizen's safety and security as is international terrorism.

Drive-By shootings are crimes that really damage the fabric of a community.  The victims are often killed or severely injured.  nyceve today has posted a diary on a woman and her cousin who were victims of just such an assault.  nyceve comments on the damage to this woman in the health care and rehabilitation system.  This diary is focuses on the damage that the shooting itself does to the psyche of a community, now living with more fear of violence.  

Her life changed the morning of May 29, 2005, as she and her 18-year-old cousin, Anna Franklin, drove along Texas 69 in Angelina County. Eric Stephen Parnell, of Pollok, a man she had never met, pulled up next to Holliday and fired a shotgun into her Ford Explorer.

One blast struck her cousin in the head, killing her. Another nearly blew off Holliday's arm. Parnell abducted and beat her. He received two consecutive life sentences.

The March 2007 U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services publication Drive-By Shootings wrote a study on drive-by shootings:

"Many drive-by shootings involve multiple suspects and multiple victims.  Using a vehicle allows the shooter to approach the intended target without being noticed and then to speed away before anyone reacts.  The vehicle also offers some protection in the case of return fire. In some situations, drive-by shootings are gang-related; in others, they are the result of road rage or personal disputes between neighbors,
acquaintances, or strangers and are not related to gang membership."

Although some drive-by shootings result in the victim’s death, many result in nonfatal injuries to the intended victim or innocent bystanders.   Whether the shooting is lethal depends less on the intent of the offender and more on the location of the wound and the speed of medical attention.  

The study by the Violence Policy Center was very interesting.  They used Google news for 6 months (from July 1, 2006, through December 31, 2006) and tracked down reports.  They state:

"Recognizing the limitations of the survey tools used, and taking into account prior studies looking at the number of drive-by shootings in specific jurisdictions, it is likely that the number of shootings is dramatically underreported.

During the six-month period covered in this report, 549 drive-by shooting incidents were reported in the news media as identified by Google, claiming 156 lives and injuring 465 individuals."

During the study period, these were the top 20 states:
         

California: 115 Drive-Bys; 51 Killed; 123 injured; 0.333904358 number/100000; 51647.00 median income.
Florida: 57 Drive-Bys; 18 Killed; 47 injured; 0.350144358 number/100000; 42079.00 median income.
Texas: 56 Drive-Bys; 7 Killed; 41 injured; 0.260622702 number/100000; 41959.00 median income.
Illinois: 24 Drive-Bys; 11 Killed; 29 injured; 0.195662808 number/100000; 47978.00 median income.
Ohio: 20 Drive-Bys; 3 Killed; 20 injured; 0.17500875 number/100000; 44961.00 median income.
North Carolina: 19 Drive-Bys; 6 Killed; 16 injured; 0.230946882 number/100000; 41067.00 median income.
Tennessee: 14 Drive-Bys; 5 Killed; 13 injured; 0.234663091 number/100000; 39524.00 median income.
New York: 14 Drive-Bys; 7 Killed; 9 injured; 0.076712329 number/100000; 46242.00 median income.
New Jersey: 14 Drive-Bys; 7 Killed; 8 injured; 0.166825548 number/100000; 59989.00 median income.
Louisiana: 14 Drive-Bys; 1 Killed; 14 injured; 0.308710033 number/100000; 36814.00 median income.
Kansas: 14 Drive-Bys; 1 Killed; 5 injured; 0.507062658 number/100000; 43802.00 median income.
Georgia: 14 Drive-Bys; 5 Killed; 12 injured; 0.166409129 number/100000; 44439.00 median income.
Virginia: 13 Drive-Bys; 0 Killed; 10 injured; 0.177498635 number/100000; 54301.00 median income.
Oklahoma: 13 Drive-Bys; 2 Killed; 8 injured; 0.372386136 number/100000; 38895.00 median income.
Missouri: 13 Drive-Bys; 3 Killed; 9 injured; 0.227352221 number/100000; 44324.00 median income.
Michigan: 12 Drive-Bys; 4 Killed; 14 injured; 0.122913039 number/100000; 45793.00 median income.
Mississippi: 10 Drive-Bys; 1 Killed; 3 injured; 0.343878955 number/100000; 34508.00 median income.
Pennsylvania: 9 Drive-Bys; 0 Killed; 8 injured; 0.073283935 number/100000; 45814.00 median income.
Arizona: 8 Drive-Bys; 4 Killed; 10 injured; 0.152963671 number/100000; 44748.00 median income.

I divided the number of drive-bys by the population and calculated a normalized number.  I added the median household income, because one of the questions people ask is will crime rate fall as income rises. Sorry I am no good at tables- perhaps someone can tell me how to do this and I will correct my data.

The study showed about half (46%) the drive-bys were gang related, but not all.  If you look at New York, they are up in the top for drive-bys, but very low when you consider the population.  This was only a 6 month sample.  Repeating the search for drive-by shootings in Google News reveals this is indeed a serious problem. DC was high when you considered the population, but otherwise was low in numbers of shootings.

The study also revealed that 23% of victims are under 18 and about half of the shootings are of residences.  Most shootings occur at night.

I was shocked to see how many per capita were from Kansas.  This may reflect better reporting than New York, but it may also reflect increased gang warfare in Kansas City. Yesterday's Kansas City Star reports:

The statistics for drive-by shootings this year are also frightening.

Kansas City recorded 122 of them from January through June, Police Department data show. That is twice as many as occurred in the first six months of 2006 and nearly nine times the number from the same period just four years ago.

Bullets have pierced windows, splintered walls and wounded drug dealers and innocent bystanders alike. The shootings have rattled neighborhoods across the city and left victims, shell casings, exhaust fumes and gunpowder smoke in their wake.

So far, 12 people have died — one more than all of last year.

Barack Obama spoke about about the killing of so many school children in Chicago.  Bob Herbert wrote a moving column about Obama's speech on  this issue.  This is the kind of policy speech we need to hear from more of our leaders on this issue.  We need to understand the problem and come up with solutions that make sense.  And those solutions shouldn't be reactionary to a single incident, but based on studying these problems.