I told you Muskogee is more dangerous.
Statistics show Muskogee is Oklahoma's killing field
By MATT ELLIOTT World Staff Writer
7/2/2006
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If you think crime in Tulsa is bad, you might be surprised when you find out who's had it worse.
Muskogee, a city of about 38,800 people 50 miles southeast of Tulsa, had four homicides in 2005, police reported, and five killings in 2004, the FBI reported.
Those numbers may not sound like much compared with the statistics in larger cities, but given Muskogee's population, that works out to a rate of 10.3 killings per 100,000 people in 2005, Muskogee police reported.
The rate for 2004 was 12.9 deaths per 100,000 people, which was higher than those of the state's two largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Although Muskogee's homicide rate for 2005 didn't surpass that of Tulsa -- 15.1 per 100,000 people -- it did exceed Oklahoma City's rate of 10.2 per 100,000. Nevertheless, Muskogee's rate is well above average for a city of its size.
The national homicide rate was about 5.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2004, according to the FBI's most recent Uniform Crime Reports.
Muskogee's homicide rate was the highest in the state five times in the years from 1997 to 2005, and it tied with Tulsa's one other year.
Muskogee Police Sgt. Bryan Farmer said he had seen improvement since 2000, when the city
reported seven slayings to the FBI, according to the federal Uniform Crime Report for that year. The city had four killings in 2001, none in 2002 and six in 2003.
But Farmer said Muskogee's crime rate had been falling, as evidenced by the single homicide that police have investigated so far this year.
"I think our reputation of being a violent city has kind of held on longer than it should have," said Farmer, a 14-year member of the Police Department. "I don't believe it's near as rough as it used to be."
The city has drug and gang problems, but Farmer said he didn't think they're unusual.
"I believe if we didn't have the drug activity we had in this town, it'd cut our crime rate in half," he said. "Our Special Investigations Unit is doing a pretty good job to take a big hunk out of that."
Farmer credits the city's residents and Police Department changes, such as added police dogs and community policing, with lowering the rate.
Tulsa had 58 homicides last year, the FBI's preliminary numbers show. The city recorded 48 killings in 2004, 61 in 2003 and 26 in 2002, FBI data show.
The bureau's numbers, compiled from data reported by law enforcement agencies, could differ from cities' own totals because police departments typically include justifiable homicides, which the FBI omits.
By the FBI's figures, Tulsa's homicide rate in 2005 was 15.1 per 100,000 people, higher than Oklahoma City's 10.2 for the same year. Tulsa's rate for 2004 was 12.3 per 100,000 people, and Oklahoma City's was 7.4 per 100,000 people.
Accounting for demographic differences: The FBI cautions against comparing communities by the Uniform Crime Reports, because the raw numbers can't account for social differences that can affect crime.
A researcher in Missouri is part of a team that has tried to do just that -- make the numbers account for social conditions.
Given its demographics, Tulsa's homicide rate is higher than it should be, although the rate is average or slightly below average for cities of its size, said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
"Basically speaking, I don't think that there's anything really in these figures to suggest that something is out of whack in Tulsa," he said.
Rosenfeld is the research director for the Improving Crime Data Project with Georgia State University's Statistical Analysis Bureau. The project has studied the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for 67 major cities, including Tulsa.
Researchers took the FBI's numbers and, aided by data from the 2000 Census, used social characteristics including racial makeup, divorce rates and economies to rank cities by their expected crime rates.
Before they adjusted Tulsa's ranking for 2004 -- the latest figures they used -- the city ranked 27th among the 67 cities in homicide. After the adjustment, Tulsa ranked 14th, indicating that something outside of economic, racial or social factors was driving the homicide rate that year.
Factors that can increase crime include minority populations, poverty levels, government services and the economy, said Professor Alfred Blumstein of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Why minorities and poor people affect crime rates is a tough question, but violence is more associated with lower-income populations than higher-income populations, Blumstein said.
"That's what the statistics show," he said. "When you look at victims of murder, they are disproportionately black. When you view arrests for murder, they are disproportionately black. That was the basis for the statement. The 'why' is a very complicated story."
Muskogee has larger percentages of black and American Indian residents than Tulsa does, the 2000 Census showed. Muskogee residents' median household income in 1999 was $26,418, and 19.2 percent of its residents lived below the poverty level, the census reported. The city's primary employer is manufacturing, and it is near or on major highways, including Interstate 40 and U.S. 69.
All of those can influence crime, said Blumstein, who has studied crime in the United States since the 1960s.
Oklahoma City is the largest city in the state, but its homicide rate doesn't always reflect that. From 1996 to 2005, it had the highest number of killings per 100,000 people only three times, Uniform Crime Reports for those years show.
Oklahoma City police investigated 54 slayings in 2005 and 39 in 2004, the FBI reported.
Interstates 44, 35 and 40 converge in the city. But its median household income in 1999 was $34,947, and 16 percent of its residents lived in poverty.
In comparison with Muskogee and Oklahoma City, Tulsa had the lowest percentage of people in poverty and the highest median household income. Households in Tulsa earned a median of $35,316 in 1999, and 14.1 percent of its residents lived in poverty, the 2000 census reported.
Focusing on Tulsa: Tulsa police have investigated 37 homicides so far this year. The deaths were, at least in part, a result of an upswing of violence that began in 2005 and carried over into 2006, Police Chief Dave Been said recently.
"We're not alone," Been said, adding that cities across the country are trying many things -- from special task forces to surveillance cameras to putting more officers on the streets -- to reduce crime.
The violence has caused officers to focus more on the root causes of many violent crimes: guns and drugs. They also have noted that several homicides have been a result of robberies.
"The robbery is the one we feel like we can do something about," Been said. "I think that's what we're doing with Bullet Trap."
Since April, officers assigned to Operation Bullet Trap II -- a plan to reduce violent crime in Tulsa -- have made more than 260 arrests, confiscated 90 guns and seized about $82,969 in cash. They've also confiscated about 2 pounds of cocaine, 13 pounds of marijuana and 1 pound of methamphetamine.
"It's definitely made a dent in the robberies," Been said.
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Matt Elliott 581-8366
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