LYNN — Homicides have doubled and overall crime is up 2 percent so far this year, according to the Lynn Police Department.
The uptick in crime is based on a comparison of police statistics from June 2019 to June of this year, which were provided by the department.
If trends continue, it would be the first time there has been an overall increase in crime since 2016.
Crime decreased 16 percent in 2017, 14 percent in 2018 and 8 percent in 2019, according to Lynn Police Lt. Michael Kmiec, a department spokesman.
But despite the three-year trend of a reduction in overall crime in the city, the department noted in its annual report that homicides doubled last year, with six reported in 2019 compared to three in 2018.
That spike in homicides has continued so far this year, with another 100 percent increase reported in the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period last year.
Although there were six homicides reported last year, there had only been two committed by last June. By comparison, as of last month, four homicides had been reported in the city this year.
Overall, there have been five homicides in Lynn this year, including a man being fatally shot at a Fourth of July cookout earlier this month.
On average, there are three to four homicides reported in the city each year, but there have been large spikes in some years, Kmiec said.
For instance, there was a 200 percent increase from 2016 to 2017, when 12 homicides were reported compared to four the previous year. The following year, in 2018, there was a 75 percent reduction in homicides.
Overall, there has been a 2 percent increase in crime for the first half of this year. Aside from homicides, there has been an uptick in assaults and larcenies. But rapes, robberies and burglaries are down.
“The main increase we’ve seen this year has been in the murders,” said Kmiec. “It’s a 2 percent increase overall, but a lot of that is driven by a 100 percent increase through June in the murders. You don’t have to be a math major to know that if you had a 100 percent increase in one category it drives up the other numbers.”
What is not reflected in the overall crime statistics is the large increase in domestic incidents that has been seen so far this year, which police attribute to COVID-19 restrictions that kept most people at home for several months.
In March of this year there was a 31 percent increase in domestic-related incidents that police responded to in the city compared to the same month last year.
In June the increase was still significant, but down to 18.8 percent, with 505 domestic-related incidents reported this year compared to 425 during the same timeframe in 2019, according to Kmiec.
“That was something we anticipated would happen — many in law enforcement thought that was something where we would see an increase and that has occurred,” said Kmiec. “Hopefully that will change when things loosen up a bit.”
