As killings rise in city, violent crimes sharply decline

Despite recent high-profile shooting deaths that have put the city on edge, overall violent crime is down sharply in Boston so far this year.

Shootings dropped 27 percent, and violent crime overall dropped by 18 percent citywide through April 11. The decreases were especially dramatic in the city's busiest police district, which covers much of Roxbury, where shootings declined by 51 percent and violent crime by 20 percent.

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said he can't entirely explain why homicides would be up sharply -- to 17 by yesterday, compared with 12 at this time last year -- while violent crime has plummeted. But he said part of the reason might be tied to the calculated nature of many of the city's slayings.

"Most of the homicides have been targeted homicides," Davis said in an interview. "They're among a small group of people involved in gang activity . . . who don't cooperate with police."

Several community leaders said yesterday that the drop in violent crime is significant, though some warned of the dangers of complacency.

"Fatal and nonfatal shootings are a much better measure of the level of violence out there [than homicides], and it's a much better predictor of future violence, because if someone's been shot they'll retaliate," said Emmett Folgert, the director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative. "We've all been hopeful there'd be some progress, and this seems like a first sign."

But he said that the teenagers he works with are still afraid. "Juveniles are still shocked at the level of violence over the last few years," he said. "I don't think the kids perceive there's less violence yet."

As all categories of violent crime -- including rape, robbery, murder, and aggravated assault -- have declined across the city, the brazen daytime killing of a Dorchester college student and the slaying of a New York woman outside an after-hours party have put Davis and Mayor Thomas M. Menino under increasing pressure to stop the violence.

Davis said he believes several initiatives -- including the computerized tracking of crime and the deployment of four teams of walking beat officers to some of the city's most violent neighborhoods -- have helped the department tamp down violence.

But he said he will not be satisfied until homicides, which totaled the highest in a decade in 2005 and just one shy of that last year, are also dramatically reduced.

A law enforcement official with knowledge of the department's antiviolence strategies said officials believe there are many explanations for the drop in violent crime, but credited the department's increasing focus on investigating shootings.

Starting last spring, more detectives were assigned and were given more time to explore leads, treating the cases with nearly the same seriousness as homicides, the official said.

The official also cited a relatively new investigative technique in which the department's drug unit responds to neighborhoods with shootings and cracks down on the street-level drug dealing that sometimes leads to violence.

The Rev. Jeffrey Brown, who was a key architect of a truce struck between rival gangs last summer, said he believes the especially sharp decrease in gun violence in Roxbury is a testament in part to the success of that cease-fire, which police and community leaders are trying to replicate in other neighborhoods.

"I think it's definitely a factor," he said.

Brown said he is unaware of any recent shootings between the Heath Street and H Block gangs, whose conflict at one time led to near-constant gunfire along the border of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, where the gangs are based.

"The young people have made . . . the decision to be more peaceful," he said. "That speaks more to the statistics than any program that anybody is able to create."

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.