MADISON, Wis. — The city of Madison is seeing a big increase in gun violence this year, and that’s especially clear when looking at the numbers.
By the end of October, Madison Police had already recovered 884 shell casings. With 75 shell casings found outside of Schwoegler’s Lanes this weekend and 5 other shots fired incidents in the last week, the city is quickly approaching 1,000 shots fired in the city this year.
That’s going to more than double the 473 shell casings recovered in 2019.
“We’re on pace to eclipse any of those prior years,” said Interim Madison Police Chief Vic Wahl.
He said gun violence statistics are “off the charts” this year.
He said shots fired incidents, or events where guns were fired, are up about 75% from last year. There have been at least 222 shots fired calls so far this year. There were 144 in 2019 and 186 in 2018.
With almost 1,000 shell casings found, this shows that when shots are fired, more gunfire is flying.
The number of people hit by those bullets is increasing too.
“You know last year it was 25 or 26 (people), and we’re coming up on 50 here. So the metrics are all moving in the wrong direction and it’s pointing to a level of violence that I don’t think any of us should accept,” said Wahl.
Hospitals are feeling the impacts too. UW Hospital is seeing an increase in the number of gunshot victims they’re treating.
“Compared to the period of August to early November 2019, we have seen a 32 percent increase. This year in that time we have had 57 cases, compared to 43 as of November 2019,” said a spokesman for the hospital.
SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital said they’ve seen 8 patients who were victims of gun violence assault in just the first nine months of this year, compared to 8 patients in all of 2019.
This is a trend affecting many big cities across the country.
As for what could be causing this increase, Wahl believes it’s linked to a few things. He said officers are using many of their resources on daily protests and the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the criminal justice system.
“There aren’t any trials going on now and there’s a push to keep people out of the jail because of COVID. And then people who have been arrested for some pretty significant things, they’re just out and about because those court processes are all on hold because of COVID,” said Wahl.
We saw a staggering increase this summer, with 130 shell casings found in just one weekend in July. Wahl said monthly totals for shots fired in June, July and August were the highest totals the department has ever seen.
“One of my biggest fears is that it will get to the point where people are sort of numb to it and accept it as this is what happens,” said Wahl.
He said the department is being diligent in their investigations to find and hold accountable the people involved in these shootings.
