How Birmingham (AL) Reduced Homicides by 12% in Third Quarter of 2023

By Carol Robinson AL.com This is another installment in The Birmingham Times/AL.com/CBS42 joint series, “Beyond the Violence: What Can Be Done to Address Birmingham’s Rising Homicide Rate?” Click here to sign up for the newsletter. Birmingham finished the first three quarters of 2023 with a double-digit percent decrease in homicides over the same time last year. As of Sept. 30, Birmingham recorded 99 homicides. There were 112 homicides at the end of 2022′s third quarter. That is about a 12 percent decrease from this time in 2022, a year that had the city’s highest number of homicides since 1991. Of the homicides thus far in 2023, one was an officer-involved shooting by an outside law enforcement agency and seven others have been ruled justifiable and therefore aren’t deemed criminal. In all of Jefferson County in 2023, there were 140 homicides from January through September, down from 150 at the same time last year. There were 160 wounded in non-fatal shootings in the city, down from 262 during the first three quarters of 2022. That is a decrease of 40 percent. “It’s a step in the right direction,’’ said Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond. “It’s not what I would want. We...