We keep seeing statistics from the SPD and other city entities (mayor, council members, etc.) showing that fatal shootings have decreased over the years.
I just had a chat with a police officer who happened to be in the neighborhood, and I asked him if the wounded boy in the recent Garfield shooting had survived, because he had been described as having life-threatening injuries. The officer said the boy is recovering because of the amazingly good care he got at Harborview. This of course is good news, but….it reminds me of something that was on my mind anyway:
Current statistics are not directly comparable with the ones from two decades ago because of the huge advances in medical care since then. Just like in war wounds, crime victims are surviving injuries now that they would not have survived in 1988. A better comparison would in total shootings, not fatal ones.
The SPD officer agreed with me and advised me (us) to keep speaking up about this, and other thoughts that we have, so we will eventually be heard.
In my view the BIG problem is that there are NO number available for 2008 on the city site. In past years, the numbers would be published 3-6 months after events.
Without these numbers, we cannot objectively evaluate on any basis. With these numbers, one could roll up all gun related incidents, for example.
While even the police agree that there was a rash of burglaries this summer, we can’t even see how much home burglary really increased, and how it compares to when we previously had a similar situation. All we have to work with is information about all of the individual events on the police scanner and our own perceptions.
http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/stats.htm is where I look. Are there other sources for good numbers?