Not even halfway through August, and nine Gary homicides.
The sudden concentration of violent deaths — eight young men and a teenage girl — sets every investigator into motion, whether they are assigned a case or not, Investigations Cmdr. Del Stout said last week.
"Everybody pitches in," he said, whether it's helping to canvas an area, run background checks or search for suspects.
Of the August cases, charges are filed in two – the shooting deaths of two 18-year-olds, James Powell and Ray Washington, and Ray Lewis, of Merrillville. Shelton Curtis, 22, is in custody charged with murder. Police say a dispute rose over the sale of marijuana. Meanwhile, Justin Summers, 19, of Gary, has been charged in Lewis' death, police said.
The other cases from this month – and a majority of this year's 38 homicides remain unsolved. Police say there are a number of factors that play into getting charges filed. Often, detectives know who did it, but can't find witnesses who will "put it on paper" – making the information official. Even some victims are reluctant to cooperate.
"I've had victims go to their death beds refusing to tell us who shot them," Lt. Thomas Pawlak said. "Either the victims are involved in criminal activity or they feel like they will take care of it themselves," he said.
Even though the clearance rate is low, the department has taken steps to solve more cases. Every Monday Gary detectives, including those assigned to various area task forces, such as ATF, U.S. Marshal Service and the Lake County Gang Task Force, meet to review the latest cases.
"We brainstorm," Pawlak said. "We go over every case, who we're looking at. Someone might bring up a name and find out someone else is looking at them for another case. This keeps everyone in the loop."
Every unsolved homicide case remains open, Pawlak said. "We pursue it until the leads dry up, then all we can do is wait for something to break," he said.
For example, Sgt. Dan Callahan and Detective Lorenzo Davis obtained new information on a 2007 homicide after new evidence surfaced, Pawlak said.
Lake County Sheriff John Buncich assigned two investigators to work cases in Gary last year. In June, he added a third and provided the joint unit with office space in Crown Point. Gary has five detectives on the joint homicide team. The detectives operate out of both the Public Safety Facility in Gary and the Lake County police department in Crown Point. The Gary-Lake County homicide unit allows those detectives to focus on the deaths, while Pawlak's Violent Crimes Unit handles the rest.
Homicides are up compared to last year, but overall violent crime is down for the first six months of 2015, statistics show. From January through June of 2013, Gary reported 1,849 violent crimes, which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In the same time period in 2014, there were 1,328 cases and during that period this year, 1,060, police spokeswoman Lt. Dawn Westerfield said.
On Monday, after two homicides within hours of each other, the Gary Violent Crimes Unit office bustled with activity as both units focused on the unrelated shooting deaths of Lewis, 24, and Darnell Jones, 30.
"It's a team effort," Pawlak said. He admitted that the flood of violent deaths this month has placed all investigators under additional pressure.
An FBI study published in the February, 2008, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin stated that, nationally, police departments that average at least 25 homicides per year reported that each investigator carried five cases. "Statistically, departments with detectives who handled fewer than five per year as a primary investigator had a 5.4 percent higher clearance rate than those with detectives who had higher case loads," the report states.
The joint homicide unit won't enjoy the luxury of just five cases per detective this year. Gary Detective Alex Jones already has eight homicide cases, including two this month and one in July.
"It does frustrate me because I can't give any of them my full attention," he said. "But we all do help each other."
The patrol division, too, feels the crush of calls, often with less than the minimum number of 12 officers per shift required in the bargaining agreement with the city, as the Post-Tribune has reported.
Last Sunday, on the night Lewis was shot to death, the afternoon patrol shift fielded 82 calls. Of those, 22 were disturbances, the department's daily log shows. Policy demands that two officers respond to disturbances. While some are petty squabbles, any of those 22 could have erupted into yet another violent death, police note.
For more seasoned detectives, the summer of 2015 reminds them of 1995, the year Gary set a record 132 homicides. Then, it was the influx of crack cocaine and work of convicted serial killer Eugene V. Britt that set the statistics spiraling. A breakdown of this year's homicides shows 58 percent are gang and/or drug related, while the remaining 42 percent are "other—domestic, robbery, etc.," Pawlak said.
Pawlak was a traffic cop 20 years ago, working midnights. Then and now, a shortage of manpower as officers left for better-paying jobs, left those who remain with rickety squad cars and limited equipment and sinking morale. It requires patrol officers and investigators alike to make the best use of what is available – each other.
"We all work together," he said.