Assaults with firearms are down 10 percent from a year ago in the City of Kalamazoo. That means the city could continue to see gun crime fall after a pandemic-era spike. Fatal shootings fell 15 percent, and nonfatal shootings 13 percent last year, after jumping dramatically in 2020 and 2021.
Many American cities saw a similar increase during the first two years of COVID. David Juday is an assistant chief with the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. He says the year-to-date decrease in gun crimes suggests things are moving in the right direction. But he adds, it’s too soon to know for sure.
“Just any given warm weekend, we could have, you know, one to three non fatal or fatal shootings. So it just takes a very short period of time, you know, to raise or lower those numbers.” said Juday.
Juday says Kalamazoo’s had two fatal shootings so far this year, and 16 nonfatal shootings.
