Sixteen weeks and counting: Drop in Erie violent crime includes no one shot since December

An 18-year-old Erie man was with a group of friends in his eastside home on the evening of Dec. 12 when one of the guns the group had went off, sending a shot into the man's neck and killing him.

Erie police know of no other person wounded or killed by gunfire in the city since then.

Gun violence that raged in Erie over the past decade left scores of people injured and killed, frustrating law enforcement, city and school officials and countless citizens whose neighborhoods were the scenes of shootings.

But the shootings have slowed down significantly, at least for now.

Most notably, Erie Police Chief Dan Spizarny said Wednesday, it's been 16 weeks since officers in his department responded to any incident where a person was killed or injured by gunfire.

It's a significant milestone when comparing the first quarter of 2024 to recent years.

Between 2014 and 2023, there were, on average, at least 12 people shot and two fatally shot in Erie between January and March of those years, according to Erie Times-News data.

The most violent period occurred in 2014, when three people were killed and at least 19 others were wounded by gunfire, followed by 2021, when two people were killed and 14 others were wounded by gunfire, according to the data.

The highest number of first-quarter gun-related deaths in Erie between 2014 and 2023 was four in 2020 and 2023. In each of those years, two of the deaths were determined to be homicide-suicides. At least five other people were wounded by gunfire between January and March in 2020 and 2023, according to Times-News data.

What else decreased?

Other gun-related crime that has decreased in Erie, according to Spizarny's first-quarter statistics, includes confirmed shots-fired incidents. There were 18 between January and March, down from 35 at this point last year, the chief said. There were 62 confirmed shots-fired incidents in 2021 and 2022.

Police received seven reports of stolen firearms, down from 17 in 2023, and officers recovered 43 guns, down from 66 in 2022 and 2023, according to Spizarny's data.

Among the other crimes investigated by the Erie Bureau of Police, aggravated assaults were down 46% in the first quarter over the previous year; robberies were down 9% to what Spizarny said was the lowest figure in years; burglaries were down 5%; thefts from motor vehicles were down nearly 12%; and motor vehicle thefts were down 34%.

Police data also showed that rapes were down 70% and reported sex offenses were down 27%.

The one notable increase in crime, Spizarny noted, were reported thefts, which jumped from 231 during the first quarter of 2023 to 261 this year. That category does not include theft of motor vehicles or thefts from motor vehicles, the chief said.

What has worked?

Spizarny said he believes a number of things helped lead to the reduction in many serious crimes in the city, notably the gun-related crime.

"It's not one single thing, other than a dedicated workforce," he said.

He cites the city police bureau's full participation beginning in 2018 in Unified Erie, an antiviolence initiative that has focused in part on curbing youth violence through call-in sessions and other programs; and the expansion of community policing efforts including the reintroduction and steady growth of the Erie Police Athletic League. Nearly 100 officers from Erie and other local law enforcement agencies now work with over 1,000 school children in the program.

Also helping significantly in the fight, according to Spizarny and Deputy Chief Rick Lorah, was the expansion of the city police bureau's complement through a portion of the City of Erie's American Rescue Plan funding that was allocated to the police department.

The money boosted the 173-officer complement to 194 officers, although there are currently 188 on the job. Spizarny said that enabled the bureau to reestablish a Juvenile Crime Unit and a Crisis Unit, both of which were eliminated years ago because of city budget issues.

The Juvenile Crime Unit, made up of four detectives, focuses on crimes involving youth. They began work last year, at a time when city police were dealing with a spike in gun crimes involving juveniles either shot or killed and juveniles accused in a number of shootings.

The Crisis Unit, which hit the streets last spring, consists of 10 officers who respond to issues involving mental health, domestic violence and homelessness. The officers are trained to deescalate situations and offer assistance to those they come in contact with.

Spizarny said there are also more city police detectives working violent crimes. Through their efforts, Spizarny said, all of the city's homicides in 2022 and 2023 were cleared through arrest or a suspect's death, including the Dec. 12 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Hayden Lucas.

Erie police additionally cite collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, including the Erie County District Attorney's Office, in efforts including the Gun Working Group and in large-scale investigations that included the federal indictment last spring of 58 people in a large-scale drug trafficking case. Of those charged in the indictment, 22 are accused of participating in drug dealing and other crimes as members of a city gang known as 4-Nation.

The indictments "basically eliminated a street gang in the city," Spizarny said.

"We are grateful for the work that law enforcement has done and the clear results this has had on our community," District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz said in a statement to the Erie Times-News. "Our office has and will continue to work closely with law enforcement to be proactive in reducing gun violence."

Technology also plays a role

Technology is also credited for some of the success in solving violent crime in Erie. That includes the proliferation of security cameras and the availability of more surveillance video, and the employment beginning last summer of the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system, according to Spizarny and Lorah.

Spizarny cited as one example a shooting in November on Pine Avenue in which numerous gunshots were fired where a large crowd had gathered, damaging at least two vehicles but not injuring anyone. Police used surveillance video to identify nine people ultimately charged with offenses related to the incident, and they served seven search warrants and recovered several weapons in the probe, the chief said.

In another case, Spizarny said ShotSpotter was crucial in solving the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Jaquan J. Burrows, whose body was found in early August in the 900 block of Ash Street 10 days after he was last seen by family. Investigators said they checked ShotSpotter after Burrows was found and learned that gunshots were detected in the area on the late afternoon of July 22. Police then viewed surveillance video from security cameras in the area at the time the shots were detected, and said they were ultimately able to view video of the shooting and identify a suspect.

"I don't know if we would have been able to solve it without it," Spizarny said of the gunshot detection system.

Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNhahn.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie police tout efforts as 2024's first quarter ends with no one shot