KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — 2016 will be remembered for a lot of things, many of them bad, including the frightening spike in the homicide rate in Kalamazoo County.
Kalamazoo County Sheriff Rick Fuller says there is a difference between the murder rate, which usually results in charges, and homicide — the act of killing another person — which may result in murder counts, lesser charges, or no charges at all.
It appears that the homicide rate in Kalamazoo more than tripled in 2016, but that’s just a guess. The number depends on several variables and the total isn’t in yet for 2016 because two deaths are still under investigation.
Even if you subtract the mass killing last February and the bicycle tragedy in June, the death toll would still be higher than most years.
Do you include justifiable homicides or vehicular homicides and how you count murder/suicides?
It may also depend on whether juries agree on whether or not murders took place. For instance, if the jurors in the trial for the man charged in Kalamazoo’s bicycle tragedy disagree with the second-degree homicide charges brought by the prosecutor, will they count as murders? They will count as homicides.
The two outstanding cases include the Dec. 18 stabbing death of 20-year-old Michael Rogers inside an apartment in Comstock. There is also the case of Rita Castle, who died on Christmas, and may have been the victim of a domestic assault.
There is also the case of Gerardo Santiago Martinez, who was found suffering from a head injury along Alcott Street on August 9, and died a few days later. The suspected reason for his death was never released by detectives.
Our list could also include the deaths of 4-year-old Jayden Johnson, and Western Michigan University student Nic Heil who were both killed by drunk drivers who have both since entered guilty pleas.
It can be difficult to put a final figure on the number of killings in Kalamazoo for 2016. It could be as low as 19 or as high as 25 depending on how you count them. The only thing that we can be certain of is that it was much higher in Kalamazoo last year than it has ever been.
The homicide count in 2015 was seven, and it was the same the year before that.
Here is a partial list of the victims who made the headlines in 2016:
The first to be killed were two high schoolers, 17-year-old Temetrion Hegler who was shot in his Lane Boulevard home in early January and 18-year-old Deshontae Dewayne Ellis who was shot and killed in the parking lot of an Oshtemo motel that same month.
Six people were shot and killed in Kalamazoo’s mass murder in February. Their names are; Tyler D. Smith and his dad Richard Smith, Mary Jo Nye and her sister-in-law Mary Lou Nye, Dorothy Brown and Barbara Hawthorne.
Later in February, Wendy Marie Whitney was stabbed to death in her drive way in Kalamazoo Township. Her killer later killed himself out of remorse for his crime.
Four-year-old Kharisma Richardson died from injuries sustained as a result of child abuse at an apartment on Douglas Avenue on her birthday in March.
Niquay DeJuan Baker was gunned down at Mable and North Westnedge in May.
The June death of five members of the Chain Gang Bicycle Club has resulted in 2nd degree murder charges against the driver who was taken into custody at the scene. Killed were three women from Augusta, Debra Ann Bradley, Melissa Ann Fevig-Hughes and Suzanne Sippel. The other two victims, Fred Nelson and Larry Paulik were both from Kalamazoo.
Seventeen-year-old friends Marsavious Frazier and Daqarion Hunter died due to what police called an accidental shooting and suicide in the Edison Neighborhood in early September.
Nineteen-year-old WMU Student Jacob Ryan Jones was shot to death during an alleged armed robbery at an off campus apartment in early December.
Fuller said it’s difficult statistically to predict where an annual homicide rate will go, and he would like to see go down to zero in 2017 but they have very little control over that, especially in a community the size of Kalamazoo.
In Chicago, it’s easier to trace and link gang violence to the reason for their spike in killings. The deaths this past year in Kalamazoo County can’t be so easily categorized, and there isn’t much that local law enforcers could propose to reduce murders in the future that they are not already pursuing.
The killings here range from a mass-murder to a mom who just claimed she was administering discipline. Some might be blamed on domestic abuse, others on drugs or the availability of guns, but those are issues that are already being targeted by local agencies.
