WORCESTER —Following the tragic shooting incident earlier this month that claimed the lives of a mother and her young daughter, there is heightened interest in the annual crime statistics report unveiled by Interim Police Chief Paul Saucier.
This report, released each spring, compares crime numbers from the previous year and also reveals insight into five-year trends.
“After the tragic murders the city just endured, the public is especially concerned about gun violence,” Saucier told the Worcester Guardian.
Crime in several categories continued a multi-year decline, including property crime, and the number of homicides in the city dropped from 12 in 2022 to six in 2023, which is “dramatically lower than other mid-sized cities in the region.” Crimes related to gunfire, however, have increased.
“While we have experienced tragedy in recent weeks, violence remains a rare occurrence in the City of Worcester,” wrote City Manager Eric Batista in his letter to the city council about Saucier’s crime report.
According to the report, there were 34 non-fatal shooting incidents with 39 victims in 2023, compared to 25/34 in 2022, and 28/32 in 2021. There was an increase in reported gunshots, from 635 in 2022 to 736 in 2023. Police responded to a reported 736 gunshots in 2023, up from 2022, which saw 655.
In 2023, 77 stabbings or slashings were reported, as compared to 80 in 2022.
At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Mayor Joseph Petty, after commenting on the “excellent job” the WPD did with the crime report, said, “What concerns me is the guns. What plans are coming along to address this?”
Saucier said that the WPD is collaborating with ATF to “create a gun crime center where all the casings and ammunition we get, all the firearms we get, we can actually analyze them and link them… for instance, in this report, there were actually 128 casings found that were linked to another shooting. So when you can combine those all together and take that information working with federal authorities, you’re able to enhance penalties.”
Robberies increased to 225 from 173, but are still lower than the national average. The number of aggravated assaults took the biggest leap, from 661 in 2022 to 795 in 2023, which represents a 20.27% increase.
Except for motor vehicle theft, there was a considerable drop in property crime in the areas of breaking and entering, vandalism and larceny from a vehicle. Breaking and entering incidents went down from 644 in 2022 to 585 in 2023, and a five-year look at house break statistics shows those dropped by 38%.
There were 507 stolen cars in 2023, up from 421 in 2022, which is higher than the five-year average of 449.
Concerning other long-term trends, not only did statistics for aggravated assaults rise more than 20% from the previous year, but shows the biggest five-year average change at a nearly 28% increase. Reported gunshots saw the second largest jump on the report with a nearly 26% change.
“The rise in aggravated assaults and gunfire is concerning, as both have been trending upward in recent years,” Saucier said. “While the number of robberies did increase from 2022, it is still below the five-year average. The number of robberies has been declining in both Worcester and the country. Worcester’s crime issues are not unique to the city and are found in every other city of comparable size in the country. Our homicide rate is extremely low compared to comparable cities.”
According to the police department’s crime statistics compilation, the greatest drops in year-over-year crime included breaking and entering at a 25.5% drop, larceny from a motor vehicle, a 19.8% drop, stabbings/slashings, an 18% drop, and vandalism, a 12% drop.
Khrystian King, councilor-at-large and Worcester City Council vice chairman, asked at Tuesday’s council meeting about youth programs and how they are being used to combat crime. Saucier mentioned several, including a basketball camp that is available to the city’s youth.
“We cannot overemphasize the importance of crime statistics because a lot of things impact crime,” King remarked. “We cannot hang our hats on crime stats.”
It’s a “small amount of people causing the problem”
Presenting the annual crime statistics report on Tuesday evening to the city council, Saucier continued to drive home his argument that it’s a misconception that there is an increased number of guns on the streets, and increased gun violence. The problem, he said, is that those guns are in the hands of repeat offenders—the ones “known to police.”
“It’s a small amount that’s committing all the violence in the city,” he told city councilors. “Those are the people that need to be targeted and put in prison and then this will stop because everybody out there is not shooting guns.”
Saucier told the Worcester Guardian that the problem lies in the area of pre-trial detention and sentencing and that the WPD and city officials support legislative efforts to “hold these repeat offenders accountable by ensuring that they can be detained until trial when they have violated the terms of their release.”
There are efforts to support this at a state level. City councilors in Springfield, a city that is often compared to Worcester, earlier this week passed a resolution to address repeat firearm violent offenders.
Saucier said there were 115 firearms connected with criminal activity seized by WPD officers in 2023. In 2022, 120 firearms were seized.
“We have a great partnership with District Attorney Joe Early, with whom we work closely to crack down on violent crime and keep our community safe,” Saucier said. “Repeat offenders are often held for 120 days after a dangerousness hearing, but are then released until their trial. We have seen too many cases where they commit more gun violence while awaiting trial for previous charges related to gun violence.”
Community policing to “improve the quality of life in all neighborhoods”
Since coming on as interim chief in early September of 2023, Saucier has been outspoken about improving the community policing model to forge stronger relationships between other agencies, departments, and organizations.
“It is clear that our neighborhoods are experiencing the long-term gains of crime prevention efforts such as the Neighborhood Response Team and Summer Impact Program,” Saucier wrote in the report. “In addition, at the beginning of 2022, we restructured our Operations Division into precincts. We believe this reorganization helps to solve reoccuring [sic] problems within a geographical area and allow for greater engagement within the community.”
The restructuring, he said, also enhances accountability, making officers and officials responsible for specific areas in the city.
WPD in 2014 instituted the ShotSpotter program, which helps the department identify where gunfire is occurring, helping officers respond faster to gunshot calls. In 2023, there were 116 confirmed gunshot incidents, and 70 of those were picked up by ShotSpotter technology. The 70 activations resulted in 12 arrests and the recovery of eight firearms, according to the report. Saucier said that of those 70 activations, 41 of them were not called into police.
In 2021, the department adopted the ResourceRouter program, a city-wide crime forecasting and patrol management system that helps direct officers to more precise locations for particular types of crimes.
“The ShotSpotter program substantially improved the way police respond to and locate gun-related crime,” said Saucier. “Without the program, there would be many incidents of gunfire that would not result in a police response, resulting in lost evidence and decreased community confidence in the WPD.”
Charlene Arsenault can be reached at carsenault@theworcesterguardian.org
