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um and I just have a couple of comments and a few questions. um, first regarding um 1162, um, you know, the community uh programs that are going to combat the gun violence. um, I worked with Amanda Brown um in Bridgeport um with a credible messenger program um and I heard great stories. um she told me about a lot of success that was had in in California and it definitely works, it definitely helps. um Chief, you mentioned um the best way of doing recruitment is our police officers being in the community talking about how great of a job it is, how rewarding it is and bringing people into the profession. uh and that's a very similar um segue into that credible messenger program. um and I think it's so important. um when we were talking about this, you started to talk about a few uh stats or statistics when it comes to the gun violence in New Haven. how many shootings were there um compared to um murders? can you break down those numbers? I was taking notes and I want to make sure I got it correctly.
so in 2022 we had 14 homicides and 107 non-fatal students. and then what about with the shots detecting the shots? with the shot was about 300 and it was either 380 to 400, I think 389 or something like that, but that's gunshot incidents. now if one incident might have had 20 rounds fired, that's a lot different than one shot fired, right? but um, you know, it could go up as if you counted individual shots, it could go up as high as close to 3,000, right? but um, but those are separate incidents. yeah. um, you know, where there could have been numerous shots back and forth or one gun, et cetera. um so it's it's one a day essentially. um and and is that up from the year prior? no, it's down from the airplane. very good. okay. um and would you say from five years ago, is that up or down? um it's it's up from five years ago. so uh 20 20, the 13 to 2019, we saw at the huge decrease. we actually doing these type of programs, project longevity, project neighborhoods, working with ctvip. we we average 65 non-fatal shootings and 11 homicides. now 2021, uh 2020, 2021 really went high. 2021 we had 26 murders and 112 non-fatal shootings. um so you saw a spike. 2020, 2021 we've been able to somewhat get it under control and get down again in 2022.
and what do you think um contributes to getting it down? um or you think it's more of a as you said from 13 to 19, you take a chunk of years and get an average. um say from 21 to 23 or 20 to 22. um what would you say? there's one thing that was able to bring this down or is it is it just kind of a yeah. I think there's a couple things. so during the covered years, there was no public interaction, there was no trials going on. so you'd arrest someone for a gun or a shooting, they might be able to get out on bond and they were back out. we actually thought due to the pandemic, the violence would go down. it actually went up, right? so now we're in a position where we're able to do this on face-to-face contact. we're able to go do custom notifications. the other thing we do is calling. we call everybody in about 30 or 40 people in and we give them a message. and the message is, we want you safe, alive, and out of jail. but if you pick up a gun, we got the full force of the ATF, the DEA, the FBI, AI New Haven PD. we're gonna we're gonna put you back in jail. we don't want to do that. so a lot of the messaging stopped during covid. you know, we also had a tough time with uh the murder of George Floyd and the perception towards police. and I'm going to be deadly honest, police uh proactivity slowed down even after that, right? we saw a large protest in the city. I'm very proud of this city. we saw no cars burned, no no destruction at all, just large um protests. um and I think that's the relationships we built with the people on the side of me here and the rest of the community through community policing. the other thing we're doing different in 2022 is we don't have enough numbers for it, but we have walking beats. the community asked for walker beats. we're doing it. we're figuring it out and we're doing it. and that type of face-to-face interaction and people getting to know their cops in their neighborhood, that's working again. it's just we need more cops to do it, right? so that falls back under a retention and recruitment been end. but um, but no, I would say those are some of the key factors.
and so when you talk about the shooting and and you have the the ATF where you have shooting task force and a couple officers that are on some of the task forces within the department. um and I also kind of see the other end. we do some criminal defense work in my um my business as an investigator. we support um attorneys often doing a lot of criminal defense stuff. we get a lot of cases out of New Haven. so I kind of see both ends of of the situation. um and it's quite alarming to see how often this is happening and how young these kids are that are getting in these shootings. um no, when we talk about the gun violence and basically a shooting every day and and in 2022 there was 14 deaths, 107 people shot. um do you have any idea um how many of those weapons or or crimes that are being committed are being done with um uh illegal gun owners or someone with a with with legal um uh possession of a firearm? do you have any numbers that that are broken down?
yeah, I don't have them in front of me. I did have them. uh I I can't get you that. but um I would say the majority is people possessing illegally possessing a weapon, right? whether they be on someone under age who can't possess a weapon, it's a stolen weapon, it's a ghost gun, it's um a convicted felon with a gun. I would say the majority, 90 plus percent um are the people are possessing the weapons illegally. okay. and I thought that would probably that was my thought. um from 2020 to maybe 2023 where we are now. um do you think there's a lot of repeat offenders of these shootings? as we said, sometimes people are getting out. um are we seeing a lot of repeat offenders?
yeah, that's what I reported to the um I think it was the public safety board on um Monday when we talked about um the repeat offender bill. we're not, we're we see most of our people that I've either been shot or involved in shootings at the at a 40 plus percent have prior gun convictions, prior shootings. um let out by manslaughter. um you know, the data shows that it is a small number of people, but they're repeat offenders. you said let out on manslaughter. so there's individuals that would get let out after being well, for example, the kid was shot shot somebody and killed them. they in turn stated that the guy had a gun and I think in this situation it was like a plastic gun. so he shot at the guy in self-defense. he ended up being charged with manslaughter second. he did two years. he got out. he just had we just had an armed standoff with him Sunday. he had another two guns and was in his house threatening to kill his girlfriend. I mean, after doing two years on a manslaughter second. so there's some things that slip through the cracks here that on Monday, that's what I was testifying for. got it. okay. um I just wanted to clarify when I heard those numbers. that's something that's just alarming. you know, you you mentioned that you had a lot of of your residents calling for a walking beat. they want the police in the communities. what are they saying? uh the individuals that are in these communities when this is happening over and over again? what are they saying about this? the fact that they know they probably know these kids, these kids are in the neighborhood? what are they saying about what I just heard you just say?
so so I, you know, the majority of the community, since it's such a small number that commit crimes, are good people that want the police there. but you know, what they want, they want police that they know. once they get to know the police, the police have a walking beat. they know when this guy shows up, it's John the cop who walks in Newhallville. that's the type of policing they want. and that's what we're trying to offer here in New Haven. but they do want the police in those neighborhoods. and then as we build the trust, if if you notice, we're going to be, we've solved quite a few of the homicides from last year and this year coming into this year. we're about to make a few more arrests. and that's based on trust. we've been building that trust back up, you know, and it's incidents like the murder of George Floyd, the incident in Memphis. but listen, we had our own incident in New Haven, right? so we have to build that trust back up, move forward. and we are getting more community help. and that's one thing I'm proud of from our officers too. absolutely.
and I do, I do hear a lot of good. and I know that there are incidents and they happen. um as we said, majority of these shootings are done by a small group. um and they're they're things that's happened with, you know, um the police departments that may uh tarnish the relationship between the community and and law enforcement. but the the vast majority is great interactions from what I've seen and heard. um from friends and family that live in uh New Haven on Ferry Street. um um and overwhelmingly I hear a lot of positive about the relationship between the law enforcement and those good uh citizens that want the police in that area. um I hear a lot of that. so I just wanted to let you know and and um just um thank you for what you guys do. keep up the good work and stay safe. and hopefully we can address some of these concerns. and I do think that mess did the programs like credible messenger and all the great work that that um that Leon and Kate do and so many others like Amanda Brown. um you know, I think there's work to be done and I think that's a great step in the right direction. uh look forward to see what comes out of out of um 1162 and see if we could address some of these issues that are really affecting our cities. well, again, thank you very much. thank you for answering my questions. thank you, Senator. um I