2017 is shaping up to be the deadliest year in nearly two decades for Knox County, with a month to go.
Across the county, 37 people have been killed so far. That number including seven cases handled by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, and 30 by the Knoxville Police Department.
“That is up from our average, but murder rates ebb and flow,” said KPD deputy chief Kenny Miller. “There will be times that they rise, and times that the decrease.”
2017 now has the most homicides since 1998, when there were 40, according to data from the Murder Accountability Project (MAP).
That same data set also shows the homicide rate increasing since 2014.
Miller believes three factors contribute to that increase: more illegal sales of heroine and fentanyl, gang activity and witness cooperation.
Miller said it’s important to keep that data in context.
“We don’t panic,” he said. “We don’t like it, but we don’t panic. We believe that our clearance rates are going to be effective.”
Clearance is the percentage of crimes that are solved. Nationwide, according to MAP, the average in the U.S. is 66%, and KPD’s average data back to 1965 is 77%. This year, they’re at 57% said Miller, but he expects that to rise. He said often murder cases take months to resolve, and don’t fit within a calendar year.
“Any increase in violent crime is alarming, and any loss of life is a tragedy,” Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said. “Our police officers are working long hours to bring to justice those responsible for acts of violence and to bring closure to families and friends of victims. Proactively, we’ll continue to partner with residents, business owners and faith leaders in our communities to reduce opportunities for crime and to make our neighborhoods safe.”
Miller believes few killings in Knox County are random crimes.
“I think a lot of times our choices put us in situations that put us in dire circumstances from time to time,” he said.
One of the biggest hurdles law enforcement faces, he said, is victims and witnesses that don’t cooperate with an investigation.
“We understand the circumstances and the challenges they face, but we have to have them participate in the process to get these offenders off the streets,” Miller said.
KPD hired a full-time witness coordinator this year to try and better connect with those people.
In the meantime, he said violent crime in the city is up just three percent, so he believes the murder rate isn’t the whole story.
“It is one component of a very complex system, so we would think don’t read too much into it,” Miller said.