Police work to cool homicide hot spots

BY CURTIS KILLMAN & NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writers
Monday, July 14, 2008
7/14/08 at 3:07 AM

Search a database reviewing homicides from 1997 to the present, view interactive graphics and videos of interviews with family members of victims

Proactive policing, crime mapping and watchful neighbors make a difference.

Some Tulsa neighborhoods have seen more than their share of homicides in the last decade.

But a Tulsa World review of where violent deaths occurred during the last 10 years also shows that efforts by residents and police can make a difference in those homicide hot spots.

"It is easy to take one incident and say the whole neighborhood's going to pot," Police Chief Ron Palmer said, "but some neighborhoods are actually taking those kind of incidents and turning them around and make a very positive thing out of it — increasing the neighborhood watch, being more involved with police.''

By examining police, Medical Examiner's Office and state Health Department records, the Tulsa World reviewed homicides from 1998 through 2007. The analysis showed that more than 500 people were slain in Tulsa during that time.

The murders were scattered across the city, but concentrations occurred in five general locations:

32 in the area bordered by Peoria Avenue, Lewis Avenue, Interstate 244 and the Broken Arrow Expressway;

20 in the Peoria Avenue area between Pine and Apache streets;
19 in the 61st Street and Peoria Avenue area;
10 in the 31st Street and Mingo Road area;
10 in the 21st Street and Garnett Road area.

Gang Unit Sgt. Van Ellis said it takes a lot more than evaluating violent-crime hot spots to catch the assailants and prevent future attacks.

"Violent crime and gun crimes are not geographically based," he said. "They are people based, and so to combat gun crimes, you have to understand the people who are committing those crimes and how they are interacting inside the community."

Gun crimes and killings

The Tulsa World review shows that a majority of the city's homicides during the last decade were shooting deaths. Of the 507 people who were killed, 338 were shot, 60 were stabbed, 58 were beaten and 51 died from other means.

A map showing homicide hot spots during the last decade is similar to maps police have created looking at all gun violence, Ellis said.

"Many of these shooting with intent to kills, where someone has actually fired a gun at someone, are just bad marksmanship away from being a murder,'' he said.

Crime mapping is one aspect of a Department of Justice-funded project the Gang Unit has been working on since November to evaluate gun-related crimes, Ellis said.

The research has showed some trends, he said. People who were prone to gun violence were committing more than one crime but were not being prosecuted for various reasons, such as witness problems or a lack of evidence.

It also found that many gun crimes involved more than one victim and that many shootings were committed by people with some connection to criminal street gangs, he said.

"We went forward and developed information on individuals who were involved in gun crimes on a regular basis, and we have gone after prosecuting them on a variety of different crimes," Ellis said.

Police Maj. Paul Williams said he believes that area-specific crime-prevention efforts are making a difference in violent-crime hot spots and crime overall. Twenty-three homicides have occurred in Tulsa this year, compared with 36 by the same time last year.

"I think we are having an impact with the Safe City Initiative and the gang-gun grant — not just targeting and enforcement but really diving into and researching and trying to find out the underlying cause for some of these things," Williams said. "We do a great job responding to and solving the crimes, but we are doing a little more preventative efforts and trying to find out what is causing the shootings and ultimately the homicides.''

The research has shown that if a person is not involved in a gang, criminal or drug activity, or a bad domestic situation, that person's chances of being killed are very slim, he said.

"There are some pure unintentional victims of any criminal activity," Williams continued. But "I always encourage people to be aware of their surroundings and people you are with, and you can certainly limit your chances of being involved in a dangerous criminal act.''

Neighborhoods evolve

For many years, the police beat in the area near 61st Street and Peoria Avenue had the highest number of violent crimes in the city. But the last five years have seen a decrease in homicides in that area, and no killings have occurred there since 2005.

Police say that although the area has had some chronic issues, a lot of work — including proactive policing and tearing down blighted apartment complexes — has been done to make positive changes.

"I think that neighborhood has changed over time, and, with the neighborhood, the potential for crime has changed," Ellis said.

Wendy Ward lives in her grandparents' former home near 59th Street and Yorktown Avenue — not far from 61st and Peoria. She watched the gradual decline in the area over the years, but she has noticed a recent revitalization because of the work of neighborhood groups and police.

"It did get a bad reputation along Peoria simply because of the overdensity of multifamily housing," Ward said. "That is why it was good when the city put a moratorium on the construction of any more of those complexes."

Ward is active in the South Peoria Neighborhood Foundation, which provides a variety of social services to residents in the area, and she founded the Heller Park Neighborhood Association. She said she sees a regular police presence along 61st Street and thinks it makes a difference in the crime rate.

"I am feeling that it is a nice area again, like it was back in the '70s when my grandparents lived there," Ward said.

Ellis said he's noticed high crime rates rotating through about 10 or 12 areas of Tulsa.

"It depends on who is in and out of prison at a given time," he said, adding that the amounts of drug-dealing, proactive policing and community involvement through tips all play a role.

Sometimes new bars or clubs might draw violence to an area, and individuals or groups can cause a crime spree in a neighborhood.

"There are a lot of different variables that can cause these things to happen," Ellis said. "Unfortunately, if the stars align just right in a particular area, it will flare up."

Police arrested a man last year who they said terrorized an entire neighborhood. Joshua Anderson is charged with killing four people within four months in the area bordered roughly by U.S. 75, Utica Avenue, Interstate 244 and Latimer Street.

That violent crime spree is one reason that area shows up as a homicide hot spot.

Last year in July, three children were shot in another area where homicides have been concentrated. Derriko Ross, 16, and Leah Harris-Fuqua, 12, were killed, and Sheridan Rand, then 12, was injured.

Police think that the shootings, which took place about 3 a.m. in the 1800 block of North Lewis Avenue, occurred after a disturbance outside a bar.

Hours after the children were killed, the Rev. Julius Ballard and his wife, Freddie Ballard, arrived at their church just south of the shooting scene and saw the children's families and friends gathered in the parking lot.

"We were just getting ready for church. We did not even have a clue,'' Freddie Ballard said. "My husband went over and prayed with the family and let them know that justice will be served."

But he also told them that he knew firsthand what they were feeling. The couple's son, Frederick Ballard, was shot to death in July 2001. His slaying remains unsolved.

"A lot of people get caught up in the mayhem. A lot of kids have been victims," Ballard said. "But the whole community needs to know that we can triumph."

The Ballards have created the Love Works Foundation in honor of their son and are involved in many community- outreach programs.

Crime mapping

Mapping crimes as a means of proactive policing is a trend in law enforcement nationally, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.

"We have found that these individuals (killers) are very mobile and have networks of people around them who are supporting them in criminal endeavors, so it takes a little bit more effort than just saturating red dots on a map to catch these guys,'' Ellis said.

To further its geographic analysis of crime, the Police Department hopes to have CompStat by the end of this year or the first quarter of next year. Originating in New York, CompStat is an approach to crime reduction and resource management using crime mapping.

Many killings can't be prevented because they occur in homes or other places where police can't patrol, "but what we hope to prevent with CompStat and the analysis," Palmer said, "is getting people and the resources to the right place and the right time to prevent those that occur on the street. To prevent those that are the result of large crowds gathering and conflict between those crowds — that is where the value of CompStat will lie with the homicide rate.

"The value for other crimes, I think, will be even more dramatic.''

Curtis Killman 581-8471
curtis.killman@tulsaworld.com

Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com

Associated Images:

Tulsa Police Maj. Paul Williams (left) stands with Chamberlain Park-area residents and officials last month around a new neighborhood sign that was installed in an effort to encourage pride in the area. JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World