JUDY WOODRUFF: Across the U.S., murders have skyrocketed this year, while nonviolent offenses
have largely dropped. That is according to publicly available crime data.
But the efforts to curb homicides comes at a time when police departments are facing
both staffing shortages because of the pandemic and lingering distrust in communities of color
following months of nationwide protests.
John Yang explores what is behind the latest trends.
JOHN YANG: Khalilah Corey's 19-year-old son, Wanya, dreamed of becoming a journalist. In
his free time, he loved playing basketball in their Minneapolis neighborhood.
KHALILAH COREY, Mother: That's kind of how my neighborhood got to know us. I was the
mother, the single mother with five, and the boys outside playing basketball.
JOHN YANG: On October 11, Corey got a text from Wanya saying he was heading home after
playing at a nearby court.
KHALILAH COREY: It was my middle child's birthday. He was turning 12. And, later on that day,
we were going to celebrate at home, like we do.
We were waiting for Wanya to come. When he didn't come, it was -- it was devastating.
JOHN YANG: Wanya had been killed in a drive-by shooting.
Minneapolis, still reeling from this summer's police killing of George Floyd, has had 80
murders so far this year, a level not seen since the 1990s.
Despite the uptick, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously earlier this month to shift
nearly $8 million from next year's police budget.
I spoke with Corey, who's an early education teacher, by Skype.
I mean, what do you think happened?
KHALILAH COREY: I don't even know. I mean, just from what I'm hearing from the police,
mistaken identity. What happened to him is unexplainable. They don't have any leads.
JOHN YANG: Tragically, Khalilah Corey has felt this pain before. She grew up on Chicago's
West Side and lost two brothers to gun violence. She says she moved her family to Minneapolis
six years ago, in hopes of giving her children a better life.
KHALILAH COREY: So, it's just -- it's more -- more trauma on top of trauma on top of
trauma. And I just -- I don't want my kids to live in fear.
JOHN YANG: The 80 percent spike in Minneapolis homicides this year is part of a nationwide
surge in murders during the pandemic.
JEFF ASHER, AH Datalytics: We're seeing something historic here.
JOHN YANG: Jeff Asher is a crime analyst in New Orleans who has studied 2020 data from
more than 50 cities.
JEFF ASHER: And in those cities, murder is up about 35, 36 percent this year relative
to last year, which, to put that in some perspective, the largest national year-to-year change we
have ever had is a 12.5 percent increase
JOHN YANG: While most crime, including home burglaries and robberies, has gone down, murder
rates have risen sharply, both in large cities like New York, Chicago and Seattle, and in
smaller ones like Lubbock, Texas, and Greensboro, North Carolina.
And last month, Los Angeles reached a grim milestone, for the first time in more than
a decade, 300 homicides.
MICHEL MOORE, Los Angeles Police Chief: This is a pandemic of violence.
JOHN YANG: Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore says increased gang violence, and the
effects of the pandemic has led to a 30 percent increase in killings in the nation's second
largest city.
MICHEL MOORE: The loss of jobs, the loss of people's source of income, of their stability,
of their home, of just a sense of crisis that they're in. We have seen a dramatic increase,
historic increase in the number of gun sale.
JOHN YANG: Like in many U.S. cities, COVID-19 has led to police staffing shortages and handcuffed
efforts to target violence.
MICHEL MOORE: We're not having meetings, social interactions and engagements that we would
normally have to help stem this. We have had more than 800 of our personnel that have come
down with the COVID virus.
We have two that we have lost, two of our employees, one an officer and one a detention
officer. So, we know firsthand the impact of this pandemic.
JOHN YANG: Another major factor? Lingering distrust between law enforcement and communities
of color after officers killed Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
REV. DARREN FAULKNER, Kansas City No Violence Alliance: There's a huge trust factor that
we are seeing in the community as it pertains to law enforcement. And that didn't just start
with the death of George Floyd. I will say that that has definitely complicated things
further.
JOHN YANG: Reverend Darren Faulkner works with at-risk individuals in Kansas City, Missouri,
which this year has set a new record for homicides. He says many of the people he works with are
afraid to call the police.
REV. DARREN FAULKNER: Fear of the police, fear to call the police. I will call 911 if
I am dying. Anything short of that, I'm afraid I'm going to go to jail if I call them. And
so, yes, that's a -- that's an issue that's been longstanding in the community that I
serve.
JOHN YANG: Some of the biggest spikes in homicide have been in cities that had large protests
over racial justice and police killings. In Louisville, for example, murders are up 77
percent, in Milwaukee, almost 100 percent.
RICHARD ROSENFELD, University of Missouri-St. Louis: We have to be more speculative about
the connection between protest activity on the one hand and community violence on the
other.
JOHN YANG: Criminologist Richard Rosenfeld says, when a community loses trust in the
police, violence can follow.
RICHARD ROSENFELD: It could be that police have been redeployed to address the protest
activity from their normal routines.
It could also be that communities that have always had a somewhat fraught relationship
with the police, in those communities during periods of widespread intense protests, that
relationship deteriorates even further, street justice takes hold, and we see an increase
in violent crime.
JOHN YANG: Despite the sharp increase in murders, the nation's violent crime rate is nowhere
near its peak 30 years ago.
RICHARD ROSENFELD: There's been a big crime drop since the early '90s, with some fits
and starts. And we're seeing a spike right now, but that spike, generally speaking, is
taking cities back to where they were perhaps five years ago, five to 10 years ago.
There are some exceptions of cities that are seeing crime -- violent crime rates that they
haven't seen in decades. But, by and large, that's not the case.
JOHN YANG: Back in Minneapolis, though, Khalilah Corey says violence in her neighborhood is
the worst she's ever seen.
KHALILAH COREY: Now I'm even more scared to even leave the house, take the kids out, because
it's been so much violence, like so much. I feel like I'm back in Chicago.
JOHN YANG: And she says life now seems unimaginable without her oldest son.
KHALILAH COREY: Any time I was sad, he would come in and he'd be like, "Mom" -- he would
hold out his arms and say, "Mom, bring it in, bring it in."
And I'm like: "No, I don't want a hug."
He's like: "Come on. I'm going to do it anyway. Bring it in."
And he'd hug me so tight, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't be angry anymore. I couldn't
think about anything, except for that hug.
JOHN YANG: Another victim in a year that has been marked by so many deaths.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.