Marcus Chaney was shot and killed Aug. 6 on East River Street outside the Homewood Suites hotel.

Ronnie Cooper, 30, was subdued by civilians in the area and later arrested by Savannah police.

It was the 15th and most recent homicide in Savannah police’s jurisdiction this year, and one of at least three shootings in a three-day period.

Savannah police chief Roy Minter said "Savannah has a gun problem." He said when it comes to shootings, they aren't random crimes — the victims and suspects usually know each other, as was the case with Chaney and Cooper.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing more and more incidents where people are resolving conflict or challenging each other by the use of the weapon," Minter said. "We're seeing situations where people are not resolving conflicts with fistfights or some type of physical altercation. A lot of times these conflicts are being resolved by the use of weapons."

By July 20 of this year, violent crime in Savannah, which includes robberies, rapes, aggravated assaults and homicides, was up 32% from last year.

According to Savannah police’s crime statistics, police had investigated 662 violent crimes by July 20. At that point last year, the number was only 494.

Four years ago, violent weeks like these were common.

By the end of 2015, Savannah-Chatham police investigated 53 homicides in the now-split jurisdiction, 48 of which were recorded in the city’s current jurisdiction.

It was a benchmark year, the bloodiest for Savannah in two decades. The most killings ever recorded in the metro area topped off at 60, back in 1991.

The next year wasn’t much better: In 2016, 50 people were killed in metro’s jurisdiction, 44 of those were in the city. Overall, violent crime was up by 1 percent.

In 2017, the number dropped. Savannah and unincorporated Chatham saw a significant drop in homicides — the metro area tallied 34 total in 2017, 29 of which were in the city.

In 2018, the number dropped again to 31 killings in the metro area, with 28 in the city.

Bad year so far

The largest increase in violent crime this year was aggravated assaults.

This year, Savannah police have investigated 180 aggravated assaults with guns, 62 more than those investigated by July 20 last year.

The largest percentage increase across the board came in the way of aggravated assaults without guns. Police have investigated 289, 113 more than they had at that point in 2018.

Minter said 57% of aggravated assaults without weapons this year have been domestic in nature — crimes between family members.

While violent crime is up, fewer people have been killed in Savannah this year than in the last few years. By Aug. 10, police had investigated 15 homicides, two fewer than that point in 2018 and three behind the total in 2017.

When it comes to preventing violent crime, Minter said officers can't always be there when it happens.

"Unless you’re standing right next to the person, or you’re down the street, you can’t really have any impact on those types of things," Minter said.

Minter said police are making efforts to use crime data to better understand where increased patrols are needed.

"When we talk about being proactive, we want to see what we can do to get ahead of crime so we can try, as best we can, to reduce the possibility of a crime even occurring in that area," Minter said.

Task Force

Savannah police's Violent Crimes Task Force is a large part of the department's proactive policing initiative, Minter said.

At a council workshop earlier in August, Minter presented some statistics regarding the group's effectiveness. At the 6-month mark in 2019, task force offers had confiscated 200 guns, and made 378 felony arrests and 212 misdemeanor arrests.

Minter said the department deploys the task force to "crime hot spots" in the city, which Minter described as "some of the areas where we had started to see some of the latest crime statistical data pointing to an increase in crime in that particular area."

"We’ve done many what we call targeted enforcement operations over Yamacraw, we’ve done them in Frazier (Homes), we’ve done them in Liberty City," Minter said. "Those are some of the areas we’ve really been focusing in on and keeping a close eye on."

The Violent Crimes Task Force handed out 1,417 traffic citations in the first six months of 2019, according to the council presentation.

But Minter said the task force officers are "not just going out there and randomly stopping people, randomly pulling people over for a bicycle that doesn’t have a headlight or if somebody has a tail light out."

"Of course, that’s a violation, and of course, that could lead to a traffic stop, but that doesn’t always necessarily mean that’s the reason the task force officers are out there, or the reason why the task force officers or anybody else stopped that person.”

Minter said when officers are sent out to patrol these "hot spots," they're sent to make contact with people in the community to get a better understanding of the root causes of violent crime in the area.

“We don’t just want to go out into a neighborhood and throw out a net, just go out there and say ‘zero tolerance,’ or just stop any and everybody we see out there," Minter said.

Other crimes

While violent crime is up, as of July 20, property crime was down by 4% from last year.

The largest drop across the board as of July 20 was residential burglaries. At 346, the number is 79 fewer than at that point in 2018.

Thefts from vehicles are up by 70 from this point last year, making it the largest increase in all property crimes. Minter said guns stolen from unlocked cars are still a thorn in the department's side.

"We’ve had almost 100 weapons that have been stolen out of unlocked vehicles," Minter said. "And there’s no doubt in our mind that some of these weapons are starting to show up on crimes and being involved with crimes."

Staffing

At the city council workshop on Aug. 1, Minter told council that Savannah police were understaffed at 501 officers, 40 less than the 541 positions available.

Of those 501, 17 were still in police academy and wouldn't be finished until Feb. 22, 2020; 17 were in patrol school, which won't be completed until Nov. 23.

At the 6-month mark, Savannah police had lost 56 officers. At that point last year, that number was 74.

Of those 10 were retirements, 32 officers resigned for non-disciplinary reasons, 11 resigned for disciplinary reasons and two resigned for reasons designated "other."

New Assistant Chief Stephanie Price, a 20-year veteran of the Kansas City Police Department, was brought on back in March. Price leads the department’s Administrative and Management Operations Bureau, heading the department’s efforts dedicated to systems improvement and quality assurance.

As of Aug. 4, Maj. Lenny Gunther began work as assistant chief of the department’s Field Operations Bureau, heading the department’s efforts and initiatives to continuously reduce crime.

Looking ahead

By Aug.10, the gap between the violent crime numbers from 2018 has decreased slightly. At that point, violent crime was 29% higher than 2018's totals, though aggravated assaults are still much higher than they were a this time last year.

By Aug. 10, property crime was down 5%.

Total crime, which includes the total number of incidents of both violent and property crime, was down by one single incident — by August 2018, police had investigated 4,115 crimes total. This year, that number is 4,114.

Minter told the Savannah Morning News that he hopes to continue to cut those numbers down crime by investing more police time into the community he serves, holding fast to his relationship-based policing ideology.

“We’re continuing to build such a strong relationship with our communities of faith, our service providers, 100 Black Men, the fraternities, United Way, but also the schools and the media in helping us address some of these issues.”

On the enforcement side, Minter said while he's hesitant about using the word "success," he believes the work of the Violent Crimes Task Force has been, and will continue to be, a driving force in reducing crime in Savannah this year.

"I want to be careful about using the word success, because we don’t want to rest on our laurels and say the violent crimes task force is out there really doing a great job and we’re still seeing an increase in some of the areas," Minter said. "I don’t even want to imagine what our numbers could look like if we didn’t have the Violent Crimes Task Force out there on a nightly basis and a weekly basis."