Little Rock leaders voice worry over uptick in violence; 5 homicides investigated since Friday

Little Rock police detectives stand at the scene Wednesday morning of an overnight homicide at 1314 W. 19th St. The city has had 15 homicides so far in 2017.
Little Rock police detectives stand at the scene Wednesday morning of an overnight homicide at 1314 W. 19th St. The city has had 15 homicides so far in 2017.

Homicides and shootings in Little Rock are up this year compared with recent years, prompting concerns and calls for action from law enforcement and city officials.

Little Rock has had 15 homicides as of Wednesday. It's the highest number of killings the city has seen between January and March in at least a decade.

1314 W. 19th St homicide scene

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Photos by Emma Pettit

Five slayings have occurred since Friday.

Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner said Wednesday that the recent uptick is a continuation of a violent-crime pattern that the city saw toward the end of last year.

A dozen homicides occurred in Little Rock in November and December, including the deaths of two toddlers who were shot while riding in the back seats of vehicles.

Seven of the Little Rock cases this year remain unsolved, and officer Steve Moore, a Police Department spokesman, said it's unclear right now whether any of those killings are connected.

[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map shows killings so far this year in Little Rock, North Little Rock]

Speaking Wednesday morning at the scene of a Tuesday night homicide, police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan said the department is concerned about the spike in killings.

"We're going in the wrong direction," McClanahan said. "We don't want to see an increase, especially an increase that dramatic."

Gun violence in some major U.S. cities, such as Chicago, New Orleans and Baltimore, have garnered national attention in recent years.

Last year, there were 42 homicides in Little Rock, a 35 percent increase over the 31 reported in 2015, according to department data. There was an average of 37.9 homicides annually between 2007 and 2016, police data show.

Little Rock is not the only Arkansas city seeing an increase in homicide rates.

In Pine Bluff, there have been eight homicides this year. There were 10 in all of 2016, said Lt. David De Foor, a Pine Bluff Police Department spokesman. But De Foor said 2016 was a low year for homicides in Pine Bluff, and the agency usually logs around 16 to 18 homicides a year.

North Little Rock has seen three homicides and one fatal officer-involved shooting this year, police said. The department reported 12 killings last year.

The record year for homicides in Little Rock was set in 1993, when the department reported 76, according to police data.

From 2007-16, Little Rock recorded between five and 11 homicides in the first three months of the year, department data show.

Last year, the Police Department recorded seven homicides from January through March. And in 2015, there were five in that same time period, according to police data.

The number of shooting victims, fatal and nonfatal, is also up compared with similar time periods in recent years, police data show.

Little Rock police recorded 55 shooting victims between the beginning of the year and Monday, data show.

There were 31 victims shot in Little Rock from January through March of last year and 34 in 2015. In 2014, 16 people were shot from January through March.

More than half of the Little Rock homicide victims this year were between 18 and 24 years old.

"We have got to get a handle on this," said City Director Doris Wright, who represents Ward 6, which includes the John Barrow neighborhood.

Earlier this month in her ward, three shootings on Colonel Glenn Road in about a 24-hour period left one person, 19-year-old Brent Cartwright, dead and two other teenagers injured.

"It's very, very disturbing," Wright said.

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The Police Department added extra patrols to Colonel Glenn Road in response to the shootings and to the warming weather.

Mayor Mark Stodola addressed crime and public safety in his state of the city address Wednesday, calling on community members who have information about crimes to contact police.

"We need your help. People in the community know who are committing these senseless acts of violence. They need to step forward and help our police solve these crimes," Stodola said, delivering the address at the West Central Community Center.

The center is about a mile from the street corner on John Barrow Road where a 19-year-old man was fatally shot March 6, and about a mile and a half from the Kroger parking lot where Cartwright was mortally shot.

During the address, Stodola said the Police Department is trying to stem the tide of violent crime through the creation of a new unit aimed at reducing it. The unit, which was officially created earlier this year, has since arrested 126 suspects and filed 348 felony charges, Stodola said.

The unit also recovered 10 stolen vehicles, found narcotics in 31 cases and confiscated 28 weapons, he said.

He also highlighted the Police Department's involvement in the Violence Reduction Network, a U.S. Justice Department program that provides participating agencies with federal resources and training.

Authorities announced last month the indictment of 41 convicted felons on federal charges because of the federal program.

Stodola said in his address that violent crime is not widespread across the city, but instead is targeted within neighborhoods and pockets of the city. The areas, he said, are often characterized by fragile families, poverty and limited access to employment and education.

"Even with crippling structural issues, change can occur," he said. "But it first has to come from within, from the citizens who live in these neighborhoods."

In the latest Little Rock homicide, police are investigating the death of Eric Gavin, 45, of Little Rock after he was found dead on a couch at 1314 W. 19th St. Police said Gavin was shot during a robbery late Tuesday.

The tan one-story house where police found Gavin sits feet away from West 19th and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive -- the scene of a fatal drive-by shooting two days earlier, police said.

In that homicide, Charles Levingston, 21, was driving when someone in a vehicle going the opposite way shot into his car, hitting him in the leg, police said.

Levingston drove to West 21st Street, where he got out of his pink Chevrolet Impala and collapsed onto the payment. Authorities said they found him unconscious and transported him to a hospital, where he died later that night.

An arrest has not been made in the case.

Metro on 03/30/2017

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