LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As 2023 draws to a close, the city of Louisville is marking a grim milestone for the fourth year in a row, reporting homicide totals in the triple digits.
Louisville has seen 150 homicides in 2023 and 408 other shootings as of Dec. 30, injuring victims as young as 5 years old and older than 64 years old.
While homicide numbers are down this year compared to 2022's total of 157 homicides, anti-violence advocates, like Christopher 2X, say its no progress to be proud of.
"I think there's a lot of good people who are putting efforts towards trying to tackle this problem," Christopher 2X, executive director of 2X Game Changers, said. "It's still horrible year anytime you reach 150 homicides."
For a fourth straight year, Louisville Metro Police (LMPD) have reported homicide numbers surpassing the triple digit marker: 166 homicides in 2020, 178 homicides in 2021, 157 homicides in 2022, and 150 homicides so far this year.
In that four year span, 651 lives have been lost to homicides and 2,076 people have become victims of nonfatal shootings.
"Any life that is not impacted by being wounded by the scourge—we'll take that all day long—but at the end of the day, the numbers are what they are," 2X said. "We have not seen a downward spiral in four years. The evidence is pretty clear on that."
Community advocates like 2X, as well as LMPD, have stressed the "crucial" role community members play in mitigating violent crime, including homicides.
As late as October 2023, LMPD reported an increase in its clearance rate for solving homicides compared to the last several years, at 46%.
During that same time period in 2021, LMPD's the clearance rate for homicides sat at 31%.
"At the end of the day, the violence is so widespread right now that it's just hard to tackle in any meaningful way," 2X said. "That's problematic because when you [have] widespread, reckless shootings happening everywhere, it's not easy to try to tackle that problem in any significant way.
An LMPD spokesperson touched on that fact, in a recent statement shared with WHAS11, saying the community's role "... has been paramount in providing crucial information about violent incidents."
"Their support has not only bolstered our investigations but has also strengthened the bonds between our department and the community," the police spokesperson said, in a statement from October 2023.
"Whether it's law enforcement, advocacy groups, citizens who really care about the loss of human life in such a reckless way," 2X said. "Doing their part that can lead to hopefully a serious take down. We have to wait and see."
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