Four Out Of Five Unsolved
We've gotten kind of into this show on A&E called "The First 48," which follows homicide detectives during the first 48 hours of a murder investigation. As the narrator intones over the ominous major-second chord, "their chance of solving a crime is cut in half if they don't get a lead in the first 48."
Funny, they never seem to follow the SFPD around on this show. Know why? Because they've made no arrests in eighty percent of the homicides reported this year. Eighty percent! That's outrageous! That's actually lower than the clearance rate in the big Chronicle brouhaha in 2002 over former Chief Lau that forced him to resign (he solved 28% of all violent crimes and 50% of murders).
Chris Daly and Tom Ammiano have called for a performance audit of the SFPD, and Ross Mirkarimi is demanding to know why no one's patrolling crime hot spots in his district. (Probably because you're doing such a good job on your own, Ross!) Daly's also called for the creation of a prevention plan on the issue.
After the jump -- some unhappy-making numbers.
*As of today, there have been 94 homicides in SF for 2005, which is a ten-year high.
*Of those 94, 74 remain unsolved, which is about a 20% clearance rate. Eight murders are being prosecuted (count three for the woman who dropped her kids in the bay). Four were dropped for lack of evidence, and eight others were dropped after the suspect died. Other cities of our size have a 58% arrest rate.
*14 of the 88 murders last year are currently being prosecuted.
*64% of this year's SF homicide victims are African-American. African-Americans make up less than 10% of the city's population.
*20% of all homicides take place on public housing property.
*The cops claim that one big issue is that witnesses refuse to cooperate, fearing retribution. Sure, since if they get killed, there's only a 1/5 chance their killer'll be caught!
*It takes about two years to get from a murder to a jury verdict, so the numbers for 2005 may be artificially low.
The 2002 Chronicle articles on our abysmal clearance rate raised a number of disturbing points too; can someone let us know what the status is on those? I.e., we paid more money in overtime for the mayor's security than we do to all the murder investigators (don't you have to work around the clock on homicide detail? We watch TV!); investigators don't have basic supplies like cell phones, police radios, or cars; and as a result, many investigations take place over the phone and not in person. If we can come up with $13 million for our firefighters, surely we can get our murder investigators some extra cash for overtime and -- hey -- maybe spring for a walkie-talkie?