Aamer Madhani

USA TODAY

CHICAGO — The grim tally of 49 shot over Memorial Day weekend, historically one of the most violent times of the year here, is oddly the latest sign the city may be turning a corner in the fight against gun violence.

Five people were killed and 44 wounded in shootings between Friday evening and Monday night, an improvement over last year's total of 7 killed and 61 injured.

The decrease highlights the slow progress police say they’ve made in the first five months of the year to reduce Chicago’s stubbornly high murder rate through technology that helps commanders better deploy street cops.

As of Tuesday morning, Chicago has recorded 235 murders so far this year, compared to 244 for the same time period in 2016. Shooting incidents have dropped more significantly to 1,047 compared to 1,222 last year, according to police department data.

Perhaps most notably, the largest drops in the number of shooting incidents have occurred in two of the city’s historically most violent districts where the department opened its first data-driven nerve centers in January. The centers use hyper-local video, sensors and other technology to help officers more quickly respond to shootings and help predict where the next incident might occur.

A West side district where the pilot program was deployed tallied 23 murders compared to 33 at the same point last year, and 112 shooting incidents compared to 182. In a South Side district that also uses the technology, the number of murders dropped to 21 from 27, while shooting incidents decreased to 83 from 116 compared to the same point last year, according to police.

“While that’s not a declaration of victory, it’s certainly progress in the right direction,” First Deputy Superintendent Kevin Navarro Tuesday as he announced the opening of a third nerve center.

The vast majority of the 762 murders and more than 4000 shooting incidents in Chicago last year occurred in a few predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on the city’s West and South Sides, and were driven by gang-related feuds and drug wars.

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The technological surge includes an expansion of ShotSpotter technology — sensors that several big city police departments use to help detect gunfire — and increases the number of remote-controlled police cameras in the pilot areas by 25%. The data from the ShotSpotter sensors and the remote videos are immediately accessible to cops on the streets via smartphones. The department found ShotSpotter sensors, on average, detect shootings five minutes ahead of when dispatchers first receive citizen reports.

Officers staff the newly created nerve centers around the clock and use HunchLab — a Web-based system that crunches information on arrests, calls for service, arrests, gang activity, weather and other data — to create prediction models of where the next violent incident might occur. In addition, the University of Chicago Crime has embedded experts in the pilot nerve centers to help police make sense of the data and provide real-time analysis.

The police department plans to launch three more nerve centers, officially called Strategic Decision Support Centers, in the months ahead. The tech surge comes as the department is in the midst of a two-year hiring of nearly 1,000 additional officers, which would bring the force to 13,500 sworn officers.

Police deployed an extra 1,300 officers over Memorial Day weekend, with particular focus on the city’s lakefront and parks. Chief Fred Waller, who oversees the city’s patrol officers, said more cops on the streets and the technology surge helped this weekend and appears to be curbing violence in the city overall.

“I think it’s the combination of both,” Waller said. “We just don’t pour those officers in anyplace. We strategically places those officers in certain districts and certain areas. We are always looking for that equation for how many officers do we put in some place (and) for how long.”

Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad