The bullets stopped: Omaha neighborhood sees 57 gun crimes in 2010-2014, none in 2015. Why? [View all]

[Brickbat]

Last edited Tue Apr 12, 2016, 08:54 AM - Edit history (3)

http://dataomaha.com/bigstory/story/71/news/the-bullets-stopped

Hard to get a good excerpt here; it's a moderately good piece of reporting based on data about the use of data.

The 57 gun crimes left leaders of the Bedford Place neighborhood fed up. They wondered: Will this ever end?

The answer, as it turns out, is yes. Last year, not a single gun crime was reported. Not one.

The situation shows how highly localized the problem of Omaha’s violence can be. It also shows that violence is not always intractable — that a neighborhood and law enforcement, working together, can make a community a safer place to live.

The turnaround in this small section of Bedford Place was prompted by several events:
» A longtime neighbor made an official complaint about a bar and known gang hangout, leading city officials to shut it down.
» Residents, businesses and police joined forces to kick troublemakers out of the outdoor areas where they gathered at night.
» Police deployed new technology to provide improved information on when and where gun crimes happened, which let police better position their resources to trouble spots.
It’s been 18 months since a report of shots fired came from the area. In that time, residents say the biggest problems have been unshoveled sidewalks and unmowed lawns.