‘We made a reduction.’ Tacoma police chief says plan to reduce violence needs patience

Last year was Tacoma’s deadliest in decades, and there have been five fatal shootings in the city so far in 2023.

Still, Police Chief Avery Moore said Tuesday his violent street-crime reduction plan continues to work as he envisioned.

The Police Department remains in Phase 1 – high-visibility hot-spots policing – of the three-part, multi-year plan developed by criminologists at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The Police Department has convened city department heads to begin studying a pilot hot-spot address for Phase 2, which involves blight abatement and disrupting crime networks.

Moore and lead UTSA researcher Michael Smith told the City Council during a Tuesday study session that violent crime goes down at addresses where officers perform hot-spot “treatments”: illuminating their patrol car lights at peak periods of reported crime in hopes of deterring violence.

From Oct. 6 to Dec. 5, average monthly violent crime incidents in hot spots decreased 19% compared to the same period last year and 36% from the prior 12 months, according to data presented by Smith. Larger buffer zones, or catchment areas, meant to analyze crime displacement from hot spots saw a 3.7% increase in average monthly incidents.

The plan defines violent street crime as murders, aggravated assaults and robberies that don’t involve family members.

In the hot spots, Smith said no murders occurred, robberies of individuals fell 76% and business robberies dropped 77.8% during the 60-day treatment period compared to the previous 12 months. Aggravated assaults increased 10.9% compared to the previous 12-month average.

Moore asked for patience from lawmakers and the community, explaining that tackling the triggers for violent crime would take time and property crime isn’t the focus of the plan. He said perceptions of crime differ from reality.

“These numbers are unacceptable,” Moore said about citywide crime before adding, “Simple math shows we made a reduction. … Crime is not out of control in this city.”

In an interview, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and city manager Elizabeth Pauli said the plan is working to reduce violent crime.

Smith summarized in his presentation that violent crime levels have flattened following a “spike in late 2021.” Charts in his slide deck showed violent crime reached its highest peak last March and was on a steep decline prior to the start of the Police Department’s hot spots policing initiative.

According to the Police Department’s citywide year-end crime briefing, homicides, robberies and all assaults increased in 2022 compared to 2021. The figures do not separate out aggravated assaults because the Police Department reverted to an older model for its public-facing weekly crime reports under Moore. The 2021 year-end crime report uses a federally compliant model, making the 2022 report data not comparable.

The most recent Police Department crime report for January and early February shows crime is down in most categories compared to the same time last year; vehicle thefts have seen an increase of more than 30% compared to early 2022.

While unveiling his plan in July, Moore set out to make Tacoma the “safest city in the country,” outlining goals to reduce the number of violent crime victims, build trust in the Police Department and increase the number of residents who feel safe. He also touted the plan as data-driven and 100% evidence-based.

After Moore and Smith presented their first update on the plan in November, local criminologists cast doubt on the department’s strategy and the police union representing rank-and-file officers accused Moore of cherry-picking positive data points.

The Police Department began its third period of hot-spots policing in early December. The first 90-day period from July to early October prescribed treatment at 16 addresses. The second, 60-day treatment period included 15 addresses, with six of them rolled over from the first period.

The Police Department declined to disclose how many of the third-period hot spots are new addresses and whether any “cooled” hot spots from the first period returned to the list.

In the first treatment period, hot spots saw a 30.3% decrease in average monthly incidents compared to the previous 12-month average, Smith said. Catchment areas and city-wide violent crime also decreased during that period, he previously reported.

Homicides hit record levels in 2022

Tacoma has been rattled by an increase in homicides during the last two years. The city saw 45 killings last year, which was up from a record 34 in 2021. Tacoma has only come close to those records in 1988, 1994 and 2020. So far in 2023, there have been five homicides, including two teens killed in shootings.

Mayor Victoria Woodards said though violent crime is down in Tacoma, city leaders are “not jumping up and down,” because “we are still losing folks in our community.”

Moore said TPD still sees the number of homicides as a problem.

“(I) never even tried to hide the fact that we have 42 bodies because you can’t,” he said to the City Council. “That’s real.”

Tacoma police shot and killed four people last year, up from none in 2021. Those incidents are categorized as justifiable homicides.

Moore said in an interview the rise of homicides remains a focus for the city.

“Sometimes we forget that there is a perpetrator, a murderer to be exact, that actually committed this …,” Moore said in an interview. “You have people who don’t value human life. And we can’t excuse that or print it in such a way where you’re blaming someone other than the person who’s pulling the trigger.”

Moore said he is pleased with the results of the violent crime reduction plan.

Deputy Mayor Kristina Walker said it’s hard to hear that crime is getting better when the city has seen a spike in homicides, especially with youth.

City manager Elizabeth Pauli said she felt “challenged” by the issues of crime that extend past the crime plan.

“The crime plan is one element of one tool and one element of our total approach to crime,” she said. “We still have an issue in the community, whether there are juveniles who are killed, when there are individuals who don’t feel safe. That’s the measures that are important to us.”

‘Impacts the heart and soul of our community’

Already this year, two teenagers have been killed. Xaxiar Siess, a 14-year-old, was fatally shot on Jan. 12 while waiting at a bus stop. A teenager was arrested for his murder. Wyatt Owens, a 16-year-old, died after he was shot while driving in the West End.

The Police Department declined to answer whether officers are conducting hot-spot patrols in Eastside Tacoma or the Salishan neighborhood, where Siess was killed. In 2022, two people were murdered within about a half mile of where Siess was shot.

“We know that impacts the heart and soul of our community when we lose lives and particularly when we lose young lives,” Pauli said in an interview.

Moore said in an interview the crime plan does not specifically address youth crime because it does not examine victim demographics. He said the department had several initiatives to deter youth crime, including asking gun owners to help reduce the number of firearms stolen from vehicles, assigning a police officer to the school district and considering a lawsuit against two car manufacturers for failing to address the rise in car thefts, similar to Seattle.

Tacoma Mall is one of the hot spots

The Tacoma Mall is one of the locations that received hot-spot treatment during the first and second periods between July and early December.

Between April 2021 and October 2022, the mall’s address saw the highest number of violent street-crime offenses in the city, with 13 aggravated assaults and 39 robberies, according to an analysis of Tacoma police data by The News Tribune. The second highest was the 8800 block of South Hosmer Steet, with five murders, 29 aggravated assaults and seven robberies.

Smith said some hot spots will take more than one treatment to see a decrease in violent crime.

Moore said Tacoma Mall has been a problem hot spot. He said an October incident in the mall’s parking lot led to a dozen aggravated assault reports. No injuries were immediately reported after an apparent exchange of gunfire between two groups on Oct. 8.

“Some of these areas…. they’ve been problem areas in your city for many years,” Smith said. “So it’s not, it’s unrealistic to think that we’re going to fix that, if you will, by one treatment period of putting officers there for 15 minutes in lighted patrol cars.”

Moore said the violent crime is occurring outside the mall and in the surrounding areas, primarily in the mall’s parking lot.

He said TPD has a partnership with the mall.

What are the next steps of the violent crime plan?

Moore said as long as he is chief, the Police Department will continue to have hot-spots policing. The department is short 37 officers. Hot-spot patrols are conducted on overtime by officers volunteering to work extra hours. TPD spent about $6.7 million in overtime pay last year.

The city is also gearing up to start Phase 2 of the plan: problem-oriented, place-based policing. The mid-term strategy will address conditions that contribute to recurring problems at crime-prone locations. The phase will bring in stakeholders, such as the city attorney, Tacoma Public Schools, Metro Parks Tacoma, Public Works and more. The criminologists provided training to city staff who will be a part of the advisory group this week.

UTSA criminologists and Tacoma police are studying a current hot spot that could be the first pilot location for the Phase 2 strategy. The Police Department declined to identify the address or police sector it’s located in when asked by The News Tribune.

Pauli said problem-oriented, place-based policing involves primarily non-police solutions. Some examples would be encouraging activity at nearby public spaces, addressing a street-design issue or connecting with apartment managers to create programming, she said.

Smith gave an example of POPB seeing results at an apartment complex in Dallas, where UTSA first implemented the violent crime plan and Moore was working at the time.

The Dallas Morning News reported that one POPB location saw a decrease in crime, while violence increased at another, larger pilot location.

The budget impact of problem-oriented, place-based policing is uncertain. Pauli said the city may be able to redirect existing services or work with one of its partners to provide funding.

Council member Catherine Ushka, District 4, said her community is “chomping at the bit” to figure out how to help Tacoma police make the city better.

“Part of what’s going on with the increase in crime is people want to be heard, they want to hear their voices reflected, because they have more information about what’s actually happening down the street,” she said.

Moore responded that the crime plan is evidence-based, so people can report violent crime issues to the Police Department via 911 dispatchers or at community meetings.

“If they give us evidence, we will respond,” Moore said.