A world-stopping pandemic, a chaotic political spell and a crashing stock market weren’t the only characteristics to mark 2020 in the United States: Certain violent crimes jumped, as well.
Homicides in the U.S. increased 29% over 2019 — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records — and Tulsa followed that trend.
The Tulsa Police Department reported 55 qualifying homicides in 2019 and 72 in 2020, making for a nearly 31% year-over-year increase, according to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation data.
In the United States, homicides and nonnegligent manslaughters climbed an estimated 29.4% to 21,570, an increase of 4,901 over 2019, FBI data show. It is the highest estimated total since the early 1990s, when homicides stayed above 23,000 during the drug wars, but it is also well worth remembering that almost all tracked crimes have been on a decline since that time period, according to FBI data.
People are also reading…
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said he considered 2020 a “unique situation” and not part of any sort of long-term trend. He attributed the dramatic uptick to a confluence of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, conflicts over politics and race, and people having idle time.
“I don’t want to minimize what’s happened. I just don’t want people to believe that the sky is falling and that this is a permanent” trend, Fox added. Even with the homicide rise, he noted, the number is still far lower than what the country endured during the crack-cocaine epidemic 30 years ago.
The rising violence has become a political battleground in the year after protests over policing erupted in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Several candidates with law enforcement backgrounds are running or plan to run for various offices around the country.
Gun control groups said firearms were the primary driver of the violence.
“This jump in murders is just the latest proof that we are experiencing a gun violence epidemic within the COVID pandemic,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “This death spiral will continue until we stem the flow of illegal guns and invest in proven intervention programs.”
Some drops in other crime categories, however, were positive news.
Violent crimes across the country climbed a more moderate 5.6% over the previous year, while property crimes continued a nearly two-decade decline, falling 7.8%. Robbery and rape dropped 9.3% and 12% respectively.
Tulsa experienced similar changes overall — crime in the city declined 0.7% overall, with violent crime increasing 14.9% and nonviolent crime decreasing 3.7% — but data breakdowns tell a different story.
On the violent side, residents saw the increase in homicides as well as in rape (10.9%), robbery (3.2%) and aggravated assault (18%). Nonviolent crimes largely declined, with burglary and larceny each down 9%, but auto theft marked a notable increase: 28.7%. The U.S. saw about a 29% increase.
The Uniform Crime Report program, run by the FBI, collects data annually from law enforcement agencies in a number of categories, among them violent crimes, rape, robbery and aggravated assault as well as property crimes. The data is estimated because not all agencies submit information; about 85% of the 18,619 law enforcement agencies eligible submitted data in 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Featured video: Tulsa Police Department crackdown
Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin and the Crime Gun Unit address the press about a recent initiative to combat gun/gang violence on September 7, 2021, at Tulsa Police Headquarters in Tulsa, OK
