Police address concerns amid Wichita’s deadliest month in at least five years

Amid the city’s deadliest month in at least five years, Wichita police and elected officials are trying to ease concerns about the rise in violent crime.

Police have also provided some more details about recent homicides and provided a breakdown about what some of them involved.

There have been 11 homicides in July, making it the deadliest month since at least 2018. In 2020, which set a record for the year with 59 homicides, the number each month did not exceed six.

There have been 28 homicides so far this year, with 16 of those, or 57%, coming since June 10. There were 25 homicides at this time last year.

“With warmer weather, people are outside more. It certainly adds sometimes to agitation and there are certain things that certainly the police cannot control,” Lt. Aaron Moses said during a Friday news conference.

Chief Joseph Sullivan said his detectives are stretched thin with the recent string of homicides. There were six in the past week, including two double homicides and one reported Friday morning.

Two cases this week involved domestic incidents. Police said six of the homicides this year involved intimate partners, which is already more than they’ve had the past two years.

In domestic violence calls, including the double homicide this week where a husband is accused of killing his estranged wife, Sullivan said the first thing he does is ask to see if there have been documented cases of abuse before the killing.

“In each of those cases (this year), I could tell you there wasn’t one,” he said. “It didn’t exist.”

Sullivan also provided additional details about what led to Thursday’s double homicide on the rooftop of an Old Town parking garage. The victims were found inside a vehicle by a street sweeper. A 19-year-old has been arrested.

He said it was “due to a minor disturbance or argument” that someone chose a “permanent solution to what should be a very temporary problem.” Police want to have barricades installed to prevent people from going into the garage late at night.

In response to the uptick in homicides, police are looking to launch a new data-driven initiative that they will provide more details about later on.

Sullivan said he doesn’t expect the trend to continue and that it will take the involvement of the community to curb violent crime going forward. The meeting was also attended by Mayor Brandon Whipple and council members Bryan Frye and Mike Hoheisel.

Here is a breakdown that Wichita police provided on the 28 homicides. Police said 25 of them are criminal. Non-criminal homicides can include police shootings, accidental and justified killings.

• 10 stemmed from an argument
• 6 involve an intimate partner
• 5 drug related
• 1 was negligent
• 1 robbery
• 1 abuse
• 4 unknown

“It’s important to stress that nearly all of these incidents involve people known to each other,” Moses said.

Police also touted a roughly 93% clearance rate on the homicides. Police have made an arrest or didn’t need to because a suspect also died in 78% of the cases, according to an Eagle analysis of the homicides.

Moses, in an email, said “an arrest is not the only outcome that results in a clearance of a case.” Police, at least in the past, have considered identifying a suspect as clearing the case, even if an arrest has not yet been made.

Moses also said one of the cases The Eagle had listed as a homicide was not. Moses wasn’t able to say which case before the end of the day Friday.

It appears it may be a case where a man was found in January inside his home that caught fire. He was shot in the upper body. Police had labeled it a homicide then apparently took it off the list.

The police department does not report every homicide to the public each time. It could be that someone who was injured later died or that the death wasn’t originally suspicious.

Based on The Eagle’s database:

• Eight victims are female; one suspect in the killings is a woman
• The average age of the victims is around 36
• A gun was used in 25 of the cases
• The average age of the suspects is around 33

This story was originally published July 28, 2023 at 6:04 PM.