Wichita nearly ties homicide record. Here’s what Chief Ramsay suspects could be the cause

Wichita has averaged a homicide roughly every six days in 2020, for a total of 56 homicides to date.

The number is one short of the city’s record set in 1993, which is around the time when violent crime attributed to gangs and drugs peaked nationwide, according to FBI data going back to 1960.

Wichita isn’t an outlier. Data from Uniform Crime Reports shows overall crime in 25 large cities down 5.3% but murder up 16.1% compared to the prior year, according to a report by The New York Times.

Kansas City broke its single-year record of homicides in October and Cincinnati recently set its record. In Lubbock, Texas, the homicide rate has doubled and in Milwaukee it has nearly doubled.

“Nothing this year is normal. The increases this year in violent crime is like nothing I have seen,” Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said. “This is not unique to us … All of my colleagues for the most part are seeing the same thing.”

Ramsay said 2020 has brought a myriad of complications tied to the coronavirus pandemic that could be factors in the increase here. He said more research would be needed to say for sure.

Kansas’ lockdowns and shutdowns forced schools to close and non-essential businesses to temporarily close their doors — some never reopened.

Record levels of unemployment were reported nationwide. In Sedgwick County, the October unemployment rate was 7.2%, the highest in the state.

Domestic violence, which has been attributed to 12 of Wichita’s homicides, has been shown to increase during economic hardships.

Ramsay also thought the delays in the courts, which came to a halt during the pandemic, and the pandemic’s effects on the whole justice system could have played a role in the homicides.

“It’s like the whole system, there is a big clog in it and it’s not working as effectively as it was,” he said. “We didn’t stop responding to 911 calls.”

Additionally, Ramsay pointed to an uptick in gun violence in 2020. Wichita saw a spike in drive-by shootings after the lockdown in March, he said.

The demand for guns and ammunition has caused shortages nationwide but it’s unclear if that has been a factor in any gun violence.

Wichita dealers said the demand, partly driven by a jump in new buyers, started after the pandemic took hold in the U.S. and again after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System for a firearm has had a record year of applications compared to historical data going back to 1998. Through November, it’s about 7.4 million above the 28.3 million previous record in 2019.

“People are really quick to pull out a gun,” Ramsay said. “I think years past we would have seen people pull out a stick or a bat or something but now everyone pulls out guns.”

“Our gun laws are not restrictive,” he said.

Monday’s killing of 20-year-old Cooper Kelley was the city’s 56th homicide in 2020. A 17-year-old shot Kelley during a drug deal, police said.

Ramsay said about 42 of the deaths have been attributed to guns. He also said 11 killings involved drugs and 12 were related to domestic violence.

Fifty-one of the homicides are classified as criminal, three as justified and two as accidental, police said.

Police have roughly 15 open cases. Based on the number of criminal homicides, that would mean about 70% being solved, also called a clearance rate.

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said the jail currently has a record 110 murder suspects.

Last year, Wichita had a clearance rate above 90%, Ramsay said. The national clearance rate for murders and non-negligent manslaughter was around 61% last year, according to Pew Research Center.

Wichita had 44 homicides in 2018 and 2019, which was the highest since 1995.

Ramsay said 2020 has had drops in a few categories of crime from last year, including commercial robberies.

So “it’s not all bad news,” he said.

Contributing: Megan Stringer with The Eagle

This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 4:47 AM with the headline "Wichita nearly ties homicide record. Here’s what Chief Ramsay suspects could be the cause."