Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith, surrounded by more than 1,000 illegal weapons confiscated so far this year, responded publicly to suggestions that the National Guard is needed to help stop the deadly gun violence plaguing the city’s streets.
“As your police chief, I want to assure you that is simply not the case,’’ Smith said Friday, joined by Mayor Randall Woodfin. “From time to time, we might experience a spike in crime. It is up to us, the Birmingham Police Department, to manage those peaks and valleys and crime trends.”
“What I’m telling you is you have a steady hand at the wheel with experience in driving this city to make sure we will meet our goals of crime reduction,’’ Smith said. “I may not get excited when you get excited because I’ve been here before. I know what needs to be done and we’re going to work incredibly hard to make sure we have a police department that is representative of this city and one this city can be proud of.”
Earlier this week, Birmingham City Councilor Steven Hoyt suggested the city bring the National Guard to “help us control this city” after a violent weekend left five people dead in Jefferson County. Three of the shooting deaths were within the city.
Hoyt specifically referenced the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Michael James Weeks, who was shot dead in the Belview Heights community Monday night. Belview Heights is in Hoyt’s district. Hoyt wanted Woodfin to talk about his plan to address the violence issue in Birmingham.
“We’ve done tried all these studies. We’ve tried a couple of studies or what have you. It ain’t working. We brought a new chief in here, it ain’t working. I’m just trying to figure out. People are scared. People are terrorized. I think there are some things we can do,” Hoyt said, suggesting a “zero tolerance” policy.
As of Friday, there had been 56 homicides in the city. Of those, at least seven have been ruled justifiable and therefore are not deemed criminal by the Birmingham Police Department. On the same date in the 2016, 2017 and 2018, there had been 48 homicides.
Countywide as of Friday, there had been 85 homicides including the 56 in Birmingham. On that same date last year, there had been 72 throughout Jefferson County.
Here is a year-by-year look at homicides in the city for the past 27 years: 1992, 140; 1993, 124: 1994, 135; 1995, 121; 1996, 113; 1997, 108; 1998, 85; 1999, 81; 2000, 89; 2001, 80; 2002, 71; 2003, 87; 2004, 64; 2005, 105; 2006, 109; 2007, 93; 2008, 88; 2009, 71; 2010, 62; 2011, 57; 2012, 72; 2013, 66; 2014, 59; 2015, 66; 2016, 104; 2017, 111; 2018, 107.
Police and city officials on Friday displayed the majority of weapons seized by officers since Jan. 1. There have been 1,129 confiscated, with 190 of those returned to their rightful owners. The remaining 777 handguns and 157 long guns are tangible proof that officers are working hard to slow the violence.
The department last year confiscated 2,275 guns in all of 2018. In the first 21 days of this month, they took in more than 100.
“There’s no way for us to quantify the lives saved or the amount of crime we’ve prevented in this city through all of the weapons we’ve taken off the streets,’’ Smith said.
“Very rarely have I, or will I, have you come out unless it is something significant impacting our community,’’ the chief said. “The Birmingham Police Department traditionally goes about its business each day without fanfare, without high-fives, without hesitation. I felt it important that you see and you know what these officers are doing for this city each and every day in silence.”
Smith said when he took the top cop job one year ago, he stated publicly that the department was understaffed – by 141 officers – and that there was much work to be done. Since then, he said, they’ve had a net gain of 80 officers through recruitment. A rookie class of 31 will graduate next month, and a class of 40 will start the next academy. “Both numbers are the highest in over a decade,’’ he said.
During his tenure, Smith said, the department has not only added officers, but changed their shifts to accommodate crime trends, which they analyze in both daily and weekly briefings. Training and technology are also on the rise. “I stand committed to residents of this city in making a difference in all of our communities,’’ he said.
Earlier Friday, Smith and Woodfin attended a gathering at Harris Homes public housing community where two teens boys were shot by a 12-year-old girl earlier this week. That investigation is ongoing, and police are still searching for the gun used in the shooting and trying to determine how the girl had access to the weapon.
“Over the past year, we’ve had a few incidents were children have been shot, and even killed, through negligent ownership,’’ Smith said. “I can’t impress on you enough the importance of gun locks, gun safes and keeping kids safe and protected from handguns. It’s essential to a safe community."
The chief announced Friday that he is equipping each patrol car with medical trauma kits to give officers needed tools to treat victims of violence until paramedics can arrived. “We want to make sure preservation of life is at the top of our list when feasible,’’ he said.
They mayor reiterated that it’s important to emphasize that no one can say how many lives have been saved by the gun confiscations. “You can’t quantify how many homes and cars we’ve kept from being shot into. You can’t necessarily quantify how many assaults we’ve stopped and prevented,’’ Woodfin said.
The mayor said the police and city officials can’t do it alone. “We need people to step from behind their computers, get off social media, and be involved in their community,’’ he said. “We need you to mentor young people, engage family members who you know are doing wrong, (and) we need your help in holding people accountable.”
More than 40 percent of the killings this year in Birmingham have taken place inside a home or on private property, Woodfin said, “places we don’t expect our police to be.”
“So at a certain point in this community, it is incumbent on all of us to really look within on how do we change the hearts and how do we change the mindsets of this community where we can’t look to guns to solve our problems,’’ the mayor said. “We’re doing everything we can to address it. We have to have realistic expectations for what people expect from the chief and myself.”