Durham police report shows mixed trends; council seeks more data on youth shootings and response times

Durham Police presented its fourth-quarter 2024 crime report to the Durham City Council on Feb. 17, reporting declines in some categories of violent crime and property crime even as the city recorded 39 homicides last year and an increase in gun-injury incidents.

The police presentation, led by the city’s chief of police (name not specified in the meeting record), said 34 of last year’s 39 homicides involved firearms. The chief also said the city saw an increase in shooting incidents that produced multiple victims, and that about 63% of aggravated assaults with firearms involved a firearm. The department reported removing 981 firearms tied to incidents and that 685 of those removals were linked to specific shooting events presented as evidence to investigators.

The council heard that identified shooting victims were predominantly Black (about 82%), mostly male (about 86%) and that roughly 43% of shooting victims were younger than 25. Identified suspects in shooting incidents also skewed young and were predominantly Black and male; the chief said about 71% of identified suspects were Black and about 34% were under 25.

The presentation also covered property crime: vehicle theft and retail theft rose in recent years, with Kias and Hyundais among the most commonly stolen vehicles. The department noted a recent decline in motor vehicle thefts and said about 24% of stolen vehicles were left running or had keys inside when taken.

Council members asked for more detail about age ranges and hospital reporting. Councilor Caballero and others pressed the chief for age-breakdowns and for the department to determine whether hospital records can be used to track nonfatal gun injuries, a metric the department said is challenging to capture without formal hospital reporting and investigative links.

The chief described steps to improve response and investigative capacity: incremental changes to dispatch and call-handling, use of a telephone-based response unit (P2C) for lower-priority reports, overtime pay to cover patrol hours, retention and recruitment efforts, and an ongoing push to graduate cadets from the police academy. The department said it will graduate nine new officers on March 14 and that another training class has started with 23 cadets.

Jason Marrado of ETC Institute presented the results of the city’s 2024 community satisfaction survey. Marrado said the firm completed 502 surveys with a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points. The survey found that most respondents “respect, trust and have confidence in Durham police,” and that top resident priorities remain preventing crime, police visibility in neighborhoods and quick emergency response. Several satisfaction measures improved compared with prior surveys.

Community speakers who addressed the council during the same portion of the agenda urged additional city investment in youth programs and asked the council to consider broader prevention work that connects employment and training to violence reduction. Derek Rhodes, director of Durham Success Summit, said the city should “prioritize funding and support for programs” aimed at young Black residents so that they can access training and employment in higher-demand sectors.

The presentation was informational; councilors requested follow-up data on the age distribution of victims and suspects, comparisons of response-time benchmarks with peer cities, and whether hospital-sourced gunshot wound data can be integrated into the city’s violence metrics. No formal action or ordinance was imposed as part of the presentation.