Where Does South Bend Rate on Crime Per Capita

SOUTH BEND — Last year was one of the most violent in recent memory for South Bend, as both shootings and aggravated assaults increased compared to 2019.

South Bend Police Department data, however, also show a decrease in property crimes like larceny and burglary, as pandemic restrictions led to fewer people on streets and fewer businesses open.

Overall, South Bend police reported 133 criminally assaulted shootings in 2020; 23 of which were fatal. In 2019, 109 people were shot in criminally assaulted shootings, which do not include accidental shootings or suicides, while 2018 saw 78 shootings, 2017 saw 102 and 2016 saw 81.

2020's 23 fatal shootings were also the most in recent years, topping the 17 fatal shootings in 2017.

"Our aggravated assaults, which obviously include shootings, significantly increased every single month, as did homicides," said South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski at Wednesday's Board of Public Safety meeting. "Again, this is unacceptable."

South Bend Police Capt. Jason Biggs, who heads the department's investigative unit, said though a number of factors play into each individual shooting, he believes the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in the uptick in assaults, as residents faced financial hardship and isolation caused by the pandemic.

"The violent crime, the shootings and homicides, were up this year and we saw numbers that we haven't seen in a very long time," Biggs said. "I think you have to look at the pandemic and say there were pressures on our community that made people make decisions they normally wouldn't have done."

2020's final number of 1,426 aggravated assaults represented a 38% increase from 2019. South Bend has seen an increase in aggravated assaults each year since 2016, per police data.

Domestic abuse incidents also appear to have increased in 2020. South Bend police also filed 900 lethality forms in 2020 compared to 846 in 2019. A lethality form is a report conducted at the scene of an incident by an officer asking the victim a series of questions about the abuse and the abuser.

The past year was also marked by nation-wide protests against police brutality stemming from the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some national experts have speculated the recent increase in violence across the country can be traced, in part, to the decrease in public confidence in police departments as victims of gun violence became more likely to retaliate, continuing a cycle of violence.

In Biggs' estimation, that pattern did not play out in South Bend, saying the police department has a "fantastic partnership" with the community.

Property crimes in South Bend largely decreased compared to 2019, with burglaries seeing the largest drop, about 24%, from 2019. Larcenies dropped by 12% and burglaries and larcenies have decreased each year since 2017, according to police data.

The decrease in property crimes was also, in part, attributable to COVID-19, Biggs said, as more people at home and more stores closed led to fewer crimes of opportunity.

South Bend mirrored national crime trends as most major cities around the country saw an increase in gun violence. For instance, Indianapolis saw 215 homicides in 2020 compared to 154 in 2019 and 159 in 2018, according to data from the IndyStar.

Data collected by the FBI shows a 21% increase in homicides nationwide over the first nine months of 2020, with increases in both major cities as well as smaller towns.

National data also shows an 8% drop in nonviolent, property crime over the first nine months of 2020.

Biggs said the police department and other crime prevention groups improved how they approached outreach over the course of the pandemic, which will hopefully reduce violent crime going into 2021.

"I'm hopeful that 2020 made us better and in 2021, we're going to see that difference," he said. "But it takes everyone, it doesn't just take law enforcement, it takes all our partners, our community as a whole."

Where Does South Bend Rate on Crime Per Capita

Source: https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/publicsafety/a-violent-year-in-south-bend-as-shootings-and-assaults-go-up-property-crime-drops/article_4e5dd876-5b58-11eb-a248-4fe3f593ff86.html

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