Renton police present data-driven gun-violence update as incidents fall from 2023 peak

Deputy Chief Ryan Rutledge told the Committee of the Whole that the Renton Police Department has combined data analysis, targeted enforcement and community partnerships to address gun violence in the city.

Crime analyst Abby Elliott presented charts showing a rise in firearm-related incidents from 2022 to a peak in 2023 followed by declines through 2026. "Gun-related incidents happen most frequently between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m., with spikes on Saturdays and Sundays," Elliott said, and she identified January and July as months with higher incident counts.

Elliott said a heat map shows concentrations of firearm incidents in downtown Renton and the Renton Highlands, and that the department has recorded 805 reported firearm-theft incidents since 2021. She also described how evidence-room processing rose from 2021 to 2023, dipped in 2024 and briefly rose in 2025 in part because the department assisted other agencies; about one-third of processed firearms were listed as surrender (proof of surrender).

Sergeant Eric Gordon of the violent-crimes unit outlined the unit's work since it shifted to full-time operations in early 2023. "Our group has taken 66 guns off the street," Gordon said, listing recovered items including AR-style rifles, AK-style rifles, SKSs, 22 rifles, eight ghost guns and 45 pistols; 18 of those firearms were listed as stolen and five cases were referred to federal agencies.

Gordon described technical enforcement challenges around ghost guns and conversion devices. "A ghost gun has no serial number on the lower receiver," he said. He added that some conversion switches can make a firearm fully automatic and are easy to obtain online. Gordon said statutory and filing standards can make ghost-gun prosecutions difficult: "Recently I had a case ... the prosecutors also wanted nothing to do with it just because of the way the wording is in the actual statute."

Council members asked detailed questions about enforcement and accountability. Members pressed whether owners are being prosecuted when unsecured firearms are stolen; Gordon and Rutledge explained that prosecution for an unsecured gun typically occurs where the theft is reported, which can be outside Renton, and that Rutledge's unit had not been prosecuting owners for unsecured guns. One council member urged more accountability and asked for follow-up data on prosecutions under state law.

Rutledge and Gordon described partnerships with community violence-interruption (CVI) groups, including Community Passageways, Urban Families and the Freedom Project. Rutledge highlighted a recent incident in which CVI workers provided real-time information and a buffer at a funeral for a shooting victim, allowing police to monitor potential risk without direct intervention.

On demographics, Gordon said offenders are often young: "What we're seeing currently is between the ages of 12 and 16 is pretty common," he said, and added that juveniles are sometimes recruited by older offenders and can be hard to identify because there are few official photo records for that age group.

Elliott closed by announcing a redesigned public statistics dashboard that displays juvenile-suspect trends, calls for service and the firearm-case breakdowns she showed the council.

The council thanked department staff for the update and asked for follow-up information on stolen-firearm prosecutions and the department's CVI partnerships. The Committee did not take formal votes during the meeting.