COVID-19 could be driving Fort Worth’s increase in violent crime, police chief says
Though overall crime is down in Fort Worth compared to last year, violent crime, particularly homicides, continues to trend up, Police Chief Ed Kraus said.
The city has seen 86 homicides to date, a 66% increase from the 49 at this same time in 2019. Police investigated 70 homicides by the end of last year.
The spike in murders and manslaughters is driving an increase in violent crime, Kraus said, along with a nearly 40% increase in aggravated assaults. Violent crime is up nearly 18% compared to last year.
But generally crime fell about 2.5% thanks to a dramatic drop in crimes against society, such as sex and drug trafficking, during the pandemic. Those crimes fell nearly 38%.
“That is a trend that we are seeing nationally across many major cities across the country,” Kraus said.
One of the main factors driving this trend could be the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home orders, job loss and other stress may be increasing domestic violence.
Half of the 2,133 aggravated assaults reported this year were related to domestic violence, he said. In 39 of the homicide cases, investigators believe there was some type of domestic affiliation between the victim and the suspect.
Kraus briefed the City Council on third quarter crime stats Tuesday. Typically the council receives the stats without a public briefing, but the increase in violent crime warranted a discussion, Kraus said.
Councilman Jungus Jordan said 86 murders “drives us all crazy.”
“Every weekend there’s two or three more shootings,” Jordan said, asking Kraus if the city should change something to combat the violent crime.
Jordan requested that Kraus prepare a briefing on new technologies that could be deployed to fight crime.
“I would say there’s probably some technology we don’t want to put out there,” Kraus said.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 7:51 PM.
