The Pine Bluff area has had a rough week, to say the least. The headline says it all: six homicides in six days.
All but one of those was in the city limits. And of those five, four were by gunfire. And one involved a 14-year-old girl. It boggles the mind.
The city has had 12 slayings this year. Someone found shot in a car. Someone found lying on the ground. Dead at the scene or taken to the hospital where they were pronounced died. The news releases from the police department say little because they probably know little at that point in time. But of course these 12 people had families and friends, and their passing most likely will bring pain and suffering and bitter tears to those who were close to them.
Such numbers are an outrage for a city this size. In a cold, statistical analysis, the homicide rate is astronomical. Across the nation, the homicide rate is 5 per 100,000 population per year, according to national crime statistics. We are a city of some 40,000. That means that if Pine Bluff tracked with national statistics, we would have two homicides in an entire year or one through the end of June. We are only in mid-June, so even if somehow we avoid another killing until the end of the month, our homicide rate would be 12 times the national average.
Chicago is having one of its deadliest years, with 289 homicides as of Friday. With a population of 2.71 million, that works out to a homicide-to-population figure of 0.0001. Would it surprise you to learn that Pine Bluff’s homicide-to-population figure — 0.0003 — is three times higher than Chicago’s? No wonder many local people said they were scared in their own homes on a recent survey.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Those working on the survey are going in the right direction. The answers to violent crime will not come easily or quickly. And while the survey organizers are looking at addressing the problem, those answers will come by way of societal changes, and those will take time. They are the kinds of things that should have been done long ago, but right now is a good time to start.
As this is being written, a candidate for Pine Bluff police chief is making his way to the city for a three-day meet and greet. Considering Pine Bluff’s situation, officials will have a lot of questions for him and vice versa. Inasmuch as a good police department can lower the crime rate, we need our next chief to be the person who can make that happen. He will not be alone in this struggle. Pine Bluff is filled with good people who want a safe, sound community they can be proud of and feel safe in, and they will step up to help if given the right direction.
To put that another way, we need a leader, not a savior. We welcome Robert Jones to town for his visit and we wish him well. We also wish wisdom on the members of the search committee in this endeavor and on the mayor whose job it is to hire the next chief. We can’t think of a more important job for Pine Bluff right now than that one.