COVID-19 Affects on Murders in Miami
Coronavirus lockdown hasn’t cooled off murders in Miami-Dade, except in one key city
The countywide lockdown may be helping slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, but it appears to have had minimal impact on people killing each other.
There has actually been a slight uptick in homicides this year across all of Miami-Dade County. Records show more murders have been recorded over the same period this year in the city of Hialeah and in unincorporated Miami-Dade, an area that includes about half the county’s population of 2.7 million people.
The trend remained steady even after County Mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered most places of business to shut down on March 17. Since then and through Thursday, 16 people have been murdered in unincorporated Miami-Dade, a 33 percent increase over 12 homicides during the same time in 2019.
One major exception was the city of Miami. As the New York Times first noted on Wednesday, the city went 55 days without a murder, its longest streak in 64 years. Unmentioned: Roughly half that period was before the coronavirus restrictions, and the peaceful period ended nearly two weeks ago on April 12. There has been another murder since.
“It started in mid-February, well before anyone was locked down,” said Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina in an interview from home, where he is recuperating from COVID-19. “Why? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m just grateful it continues to go down the way it has.”
The streak also reflects a continuing decrease of murders in the city. In 2018, for example, the city recorded only 51 homicides, its lowest total since 1967. And the 11 homicides in Miami so far this year is running below the 14 recorded over the same time span last year, according to records provided by the city.
Overall crime in Miami is also way down so far this year in almost every category, except for vehicle thefts, which increased slightly. Burglaries are down 17 percent; thefts have dropped 22 percent; robberies were off almost 15 percent; assaults plunged 35 percent; and reported sex offenses fell 31 percent.
Miami Deputy Police Chief Ron Papier said it wasn’t clear if there are just fewer crimes or fewer people reporting them or some combination of both.
“Right now we can’t really tell if it’s a continuation of the trend or the pandemic,” he said. “We had a great start to the year. Certainly there’s a correlation to the pandemic, but we can’t say for sure just how much.”
Homicides were also slightly down in the city’s of Miami Gardens and North Miami, the medical examiner’s records show.
The Miami Herald requested overall year-to-date crime statistics for unincorporated Miami-Dade. The agency was gathering data but had not released the numbers by Thursday evening.
But according to records from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office, murders countywide are up slightly. So far this year, the total number in all of the county’s 34 municipalities and unincorporated Miami-Dade is 74, up from 70 recorded over the same time span in 2019.
Unincorporated Miami-Dade had one of the largest spikes in homicides this year at 19 percent, according to records received from the Miami-Dade Police Department. As of Thursday, there had been 31 reported homicides in unincorporated Miami-Dade, compared to 26 over the same time period a year ago.
That includes one at the height of the pandemic, the shooting of South Miami Dade high school senior Andrea Camps Lacayo, 18. Lacayo and her boyfriend, Sergio Berben, had arranged to meet with two men through social media to purchase several pairs of expensive Adidas sneakers. The sale went bad and both Lacayo and Berben were shot in their vehicle. Berben is recovering and two men were later arrested and charged with the shootings.
“Although there is a slight increase in murders this year to date when compared to last year, there is no known correlation to the COVID19 Pandemic,” Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez said in a prepared statement.
(Source: miamiherald.com)