Group notes high number of black shooting victims in state

Nevada ranked fourth in the nation in 2007 for the number of black people who were killed in slayings per capita, according to a recent study by an anti-gun violence group.

The numbers, released by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based organization, prompted various reactions. Some law enforcement officials said although violent crime has decreased since 2007, it still is a particular problem within black gangs. Others cautioned about reading too much into the ranking because Nevada is such a small state.

"Although we've seen a decrease in stabbings, shootings and homicides, intraracial crimes between black gang members is not something we have been able to lower, or get a hold on," Lt. John McGrath with the Metropolitan Police Department's Gangs Crime Bureau said last week.

McGrath said the numbers the group released were unsettling, but he didn't think they were wrong. "We haven't made the changes that we would like to see to prevent these crimes from happening," he said. "We've tried new initiatives and different methods, but we really haven't changed the numbers."

The Violence Policy Center concluded Nevadans saw 29.83 black people killed in homicides for every 100,000 black residents. That rate put Nevada behind only Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana. Wisconsin was tied for fourth worst, according to the study.

Sixty-one black people were slain in Nevada that year, according to the group. The FBI reported 179 homicides in Nevada in 2007. About 8 percent of Nevada's population is black.

The Violence Policy Center relied on unpublished information from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report to glean more specific information for its report. Some of the statistics the group provides are different than those found on the FBI's Web site, but they are close.

For example, the group reported that there were 7,387 black homicide victims nationally while the Web site notes there were 7,316, a difference of about 1 percent. The group's report says blacks accounted for 49 percent of all homicide victims nationwide, while the FBI Web site's figure is 50 percent.

The nation's overall homicide rate in 2007 was 5.6 people per 100,000 residents, according to the FBI's Web site. The homicide rate nationally for whites was 3.11 per 100,000 residents, according to the group's analysis.

Josh Sugarmann, a co-author of the study, couldn't pinpoint an exact reason why Nevada's black population was so frequently dying by gun violence.

But Sugarmann did say that Nevada's permissive gun laws play a significant role in the state's perennial slot in its annual study. In last year's study, Nevada ranked fifth worst. The two previous years, Nevada ranked ninth worst.

The study said that of Nevada's deaths in which a weapon could be identified, 95 percent of the victims died from gunshot wounds.

Sugarmann said Nevada's gun laws only meet minimum federal standards while some states have more stringent requirements for purchasing and securing firearms.

He said the study did not analyze the role poverty rates play in slayings. The study also didn't break down per state the race of perpetrators behind the homicides.

But nationally in 2007, when there was a black victim in a slaying the offender was black 89 percent of the time, he said. That same year, if the slaying victim was white, the assailant was white 82 percent of the time.

The Violence Policy Center concluded that for blacks, like all victims of homicides, "guns -- usually handguns -- are far and away the No. 1 murder tool. Successful efforts to reduce America's black homicide toll must put a focus on reducing access to firearms."

McGrath agreed that guns play a significant factor in the severity of violence in Las Vegas.

"We've disintegrated into a culture where people don't fight anymore; they pull out guns or knives," he said, adding that flying bullets lead to "innocent victims getting shot, too."

McGrath said the reason there may be more violence between black gangs is because there are more black gang members in Las Vegas. For unknown reasons, black gangs have proven to be more aggressively violent than other gangs, he said.

"Some of it is culture; a lot of it we don't really know," he said.

Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, said he has noticed a significant decrease in violent crimes against black residents in West Las Vegas, the neighborhood generally bounded by Carey Avenue on the north, Bonanza Road on the south, Rancho Drive on the west and Interstate 15 on the east.

The days of frequent drive-by shootings, murders and assaults are several years in the past, Munford said

"I see more people walking in the community, with no fear, in the early morning hours and late evening hours," he said. "White people are even coming to events on this side of town."

Munford said he believes improvements in schools and more responsibility being taken by families has led to the decline in violence.

But although crime statistics have declined recently -- for example, Clark County saw fewer homicides in 2009 than it has in at least eight years -- Munford said he believes crime is still a problem across the valley. Violence appears to be more spread out than it was several years ago, when West Las Vegas experienced a lot of crime.

"Don't get me wrong. The (gang) numbers are probably as big as they were before," he said. "I don't know what it's attributed to or what's going on, but I don't see or hear about the confrontations as much as I used to."

Bill Sousa, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said studies that compare crime rates state-by-state should be examined with caution.

The total number of people in Nevada at a given time is actually much higher than the listed population, because of heavy tourism in Las Vegas and Reno.

If you calculate tourists into the population, the homicide rate would decrease substantially, he said.

Also, Sousa said, Nevada has a relatively small black population compared with other states. A slaying that took place on Dec. 31, 2006, instead of Jan. 1, 2007, could influence Nevada's ranking, but it wouldn't influence the ranking in California, which saw nearly 700 black residents killed in homicides in 2007 and was ninth worst in the study.

The Violence Policy Center study "seems to be misleading to me, because it suggests the problem of violence is more acute in certain states than others," he said. "The problem of violence in minority neighborhoods faces many communities in the U.S., not just Las Vegas."

Sousa said efforts have been made to curtail crime in the community, such as Safe Village, a program launched in 2007 in West Las Vegas.

Police, pastors, community leaders and residents involved in Safe Village establish alternatives to violence for children and teens.

Since the launch, there has been a 40 percent decrease in gun violence in the area, said Sousa, who has tracked the program's effectiveness. "There's been a significant decrease in violence in just about two years since it started."

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.