We have expended considerable bandwidth reporting on the homicide rate in the City of Brotherly Love, which has seen 408 homicides in 272 days, an even 1.500 homicides per say, for a projected total for the year, assuming the current rate remains constant, of 548 souls sent untimely to their eternal rewards.

But what about Lexington, Kentucky, the closest large city to me, and where I lived from 1971 through 1984. According to the Lexington Police Department, there have been 28 murders in the city thus far in 2021, 28 in nine months of the year. If the rate continues, the city would be projected to see 37 homicides for the entire year. Compared to Philadelphia’s current 408, that doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that 2019 set a city record with 30, which was then topped by 34 killings in 2020, it’s a lot.

Of course, like so many other places, the bad guys are lousy shots. All 28 homicides so far were committed by firearms, which makes the relationship with the city’s reported shootings a tight one. Thus far, the police have reported 101 non-fatal shootings. Looks like the bad guys manage to actually kill their intended targets 21.71% of the time!^[1]With the last reported shooting being on September 19th, the LPD is a bit behind on keeping the data up to date. The Herald-Leader reported a shooting as having occurred “just be fore … Continue reading

The Lexington Police Department keeps statistics strangely. The shootings data include the race of the victims while the homicide chart does not. Of the 101 shootings reported as of September 19^th, 77 of the victims were black, 16 were white, and 8 were listed as Hispanic. According to the 2020 Census, the city’s population was 323,152, and was 74.9% white, 14.6% black, 7.2% Hispanic and 3.8% bi- or multi-racial; the white, black and multi-racial percentages include Hispanics, and while the figures note that 71.0% are non-Hispanic white, the figures do not report the non-Hispanic black percentage.

So, with black Lexingtonians being 14.6% of the population, why have they been the victims in 76.24% of the shootings? And why does the city not show the information on how many murder victims were black? I suspect that it is, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, such would be “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.”

Sadly, the Lexington Police Department hasn’t been doing too well in solving the homicides. In only 11 of the 28 killings has a suspect been identified. That’s a clearance rate of 39.29%. They did better in 2020, with arrests in 28 out of 34 murders, one of which only resulted in arrests this week.

Lexington’s homicide rate in 2020 was 10.52 per 100,000 population, which doesn’t in any way compare to Philadelphia’s but it’s still way too high. With a guesstimated 2021 population of 324,604, if the city does see that projected 37 homicides, it would mean that the homicide ticked up to 11.40 per 100,000. That’s not a good thing.

Danzell Cruze, from the Kentucky Offender Online Lookup.

Well, we are happy to report that Danzell Cruse, the death of 38-year-old Jocko Green, has been apprehended:

Man apprehended in Central Kentucky, charged with a Lexington murder, police say

By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 9, 2021 | 1:43 PM | Updated: 4:14 PM EDT

A Lexington murder suspect has been apprehended and charged with the shooting death of a 38-year-old man, Lexington police said Friday.

Danzell Cruse, 26, was located and arrested Thursday in Frankfort, police said. He’s accused of shooting and killing 38-year-old Jocko Green. Green was found in a parking lot outside an apartment complex in the 600 block of Winnie Street on June 17, police said.

Green was taken to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital after he was shot, police said. He died about three hours later, according to the Fayette County coroner’s office.

There’s more at the original. Mr Cruse was apprehended due to work by the United States Marshalls and the Frankfort Police Department.

The Herald-Leader did not publish Mr Cruse’s mugshot with the current story, but, since he’s now off the streets, I suppose he no longer falls under the McClatchy Mugshot Policy guidelines for an exception to the no mugshot publication rules.

On May 22^nd, I noted the Lexington Herald-Leader article on the killing of Demonte Washington, and subsequently noted that Mr Washington’s killing has not appeared on the Lexington Police Department’s Homicide investigations page.

I was finally able to get in touch with Sergeant Donnell Gordon of the LPD and ask about that; Mr Washington’s killing has been ruled a justifiable homicide. I had searched the Herald-Leader’s website, for subsequent stories on Mr Washington, but there were none, meaning that either the newspaper didn’t pursue the story, or, if informed that the homicide was ruled justifiable, didn’t see it as significant to publish the information.

Independence Day, the Fourth of July, is the 185^th day of the year, just a couple of days past the midway point of the year. Prior to today, the Lexington 2021 Homicide Investigation page lists 20 murders in the city so far this year. However, it omits the murder of Demonte Washington, 28, reported on May 22^th in the Herald-Leader. My attempts to get to someone who has the information on Mr Washington’s omission from the list — it could have been rules a suicide or justifiable homicide — have thus far been fruitless. Continue reading →

As we noted two weeks ago, the Lexington-Fayette County Urban-County Council wanted to ban no knock warrants. Well, on Friday morning, they got that done:

No-knock warrants officially banned in Lexington: Mayor signs new ordinance into law

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 25, 2021 | 11:59 AM EDT | Updated: June 25, 2021 | 2:44 PM EDT

Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton has signed into law an ordinance which bans no-knock warrants in Fayette County, she told the Herald-Leader Friday morning.

The Lexington council approved the ordinance Thursday night in a 10-5 vote, but Gorton had the option to sign it or veto it. The council would’ve needed at least nine votes in favor of the ordinance to override the veto. But Gorton signing the document made it law, effective immediately.

Gorton previously voiced opposition to totally banning no-knock warrants in Lexington. But she signed the ordinance into law after hearing from local residents who wanted to ban no-knock warrants during the council’s public comment section Thursday.

Further down:

Rev. Clark Williams is a member of a group of Black faith leaders in Lexington who have pushed for a ban on no-knock warrants for more than a year. He said the enacted ban was a “relief” and the Black faith leaders want to work with those on the other side of the issue.

“I’m hopeful those who are on the other side of the issue can appreciate that we disagreed on the issue, but there is absolutely no reason for this to be viewed as an adversarial situation,” he said. “ … No one in Lexington wants the city to be any safer than we do, and so we all have a vested interest in that.”

If no one wants the city to be any safer than (they) do, why take a very infrequently used tool out of the hands of the police? All that can do is make things safer for the criminals! The Lexington Fraternal Order of Police vociferously opposed this move, as did Police Chief Lawrence Weathers.

The problem is simple: in our urban black communities, they dislike the police more than they dislike the criminals in their midst. They are like the Palestinians in Gaza, tolerating, feeding, supporting, hiding, and f(ornicating) Hamas, no matter how much damage Hamas cause in Gaza, because they hate the Israelis more.

The group of Black faith leaders “will be focusing attention” on how council members voted on the ban, Williams said. They’re also going to shift their focus to other issues of racial equity.

“That was merely just a step,” Williams said of the no-knock warrant ban. “That was not the journey. That was not the battle. That was merely a round in the fight for racial justice and equity.”

It is unsurprising that, having taken one tool away from law enforcement, they want to start hobbling the police in other areas.

In other, wholly unrelated news:

Two teens taken to hospital after shooting in downtown Lexington

By Karla Ward | Juna 26, 2021 | 1:40 PM

Two teen boys were taken to a local hospital Friday night after a shooting downtown.

Lexington police were called to a report about an altercation with shots fired at High and Mill streets at 11:19 p.m. and found the teens shot, said police Lt. Daniel Truex. Their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.

One of the victims approached officers at the Fifth Third Bank Pavilion and told them he had been shot, while the other injured teen was still at the scene, WKYT reported.

There’s a little more at the original.

According to the Lexington Shootings Investigations page, there have been 58 shootings in the city, though the last one recorded was on June 20^th, so the page is a few days out of date. Of those 58 shootings, 42, or 72.41%, of the victims were black. Lexington’s population is 14.6% black. When the group of black faith leaders “shift their focus to other issues of racial equity,” perhaps a good place to start would be addressing why black people are being shot in such disproportionate numbers.