For more than a week, unrelenting violence gripped Gary.
A distraught mother wept late July 30 after two young men were cut down in a drive-by shooting in the Delaney Community public housing complex.
Two days later, a fight outside the Link Bar left another young man dead. And then the unthinkable: A 15-year-old girl was shot in the back Aug. 1 as she got out of her boyfriend’s car near West Sixth Avenue and Adams Street.
By Aug. 11, a total of 10 people had lost their lives in 11 days in a surge of gun violence.
The crimes pushed the number of homicides in Gary so far this year to 38, a 58 percent increase from the 24 recorded at this time last year.
But overall crime in Gary is down. Way down.
“The problem is murder is so permanent,” Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said. “It causes us to sound an alarm.”
Violent crime — which includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — for the first half of 2015 is down 20 percent compared with the same time period last year. The only category that saw an increase was murder.
Police have estimated about 58 percent of this year's homicides have been drug- or gang-related. The city's homicide rate in 2014 was about 5.9 per 10,000 people.
By comparison, East Chicago saw a decrease in homicides in the first half of this year. The city didn't log any homicides between January and June, compared with three last year.
However, East Chicago recorded three homicides in July and August. One of those homicides was gang-related, according to Lake Criminal Court records and information provided by Police Chief Mark Becker. The others were domestic- or robbery-related.
East Chicago saw a total of seven homicides in 2014, a 36 percent decrease from the 11 logged in 2013.
In 2014, East Chicago's homicide rate was about 2.41 per 10,000 people.
Hammond, like Gary, has seen a rise in homicides, though the increase is smaller.
Hammond recorded five homicides during the first half of this year, up 25 percent from the four logged during that period last year.
After 16-year-old Lauren Calvillo was struck down by a stray bullet June 29 while on her Hammond porch, U.S. Attorney David Capp said his office was teaming up with Hammond police and the Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area to investigate gang-related homicides. A memorial for a man shot on the same block a day before Calvillo had items related to gangs, police said.
The one homicide this year in which charges have been filed was domestic-related, said Hammond police spokesman Lt. Richard Hoyda.
Hammond recorded a total of 10 homicides in 2014, up from nine logged in 2013.
Hammond's homicide rate in 2014 was the lowest of the three cities: 1.27 per 10,000 people.
Cities across the nation — including Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis — have seen an increase in homicides in the first half of this year. The reason, in part, stems from a lack of respect on the part of both residents and law enforcement, Gary Police Chief Larry McKinley said during a recent summit.
"That is why we're going back to community policing," he said. "We have to get back to that personal touch."
East Chicago and Hammond police also have expanded their community policing programs in recent years. Becker also has attributed decreases in crime to partnerships with local, state and federal authorities and a crime mapping project Gary, East Chicago and a number of other local departments have been working on with Indiana University Northwest. Some of the agencies participating in the crime mapping project share limited data with residents at nwi.com/regionalcrimereport.
Property crime has continued to trend downward in all three north Lake County communities so far this year.
In Gary, property crime fell by 10 percent in the first six months of 2015 compared with the same time period last year. With the exception of arson, all other categories of property crime — burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft — were down.
Freeman-Wilson attributed the rise in arson to a person of interest who was questioned by police last month after he was found with gas cans and rags in his car near a fire scene.
Overall, crime in Gary during the first half of 2015 was down 14 percent compared with the first six months of 2014. Overall crime was down more than 22 percent in 2014 compared with 2013.
Freeman-Wilson called on residents Aug. 4 to double down on efforts to stem the gun violence. She urged people to call police about suspicious activity and serve as witnesses for prosecution. She also cautioned police aren't the only answer to the problem.
Still, law enforcement has played a key role in stemming the violence.
After a 30-year-old Gary man was shot to death Aug. 11, the city has gone nearly without a homicide. Gary police formed a new multiagency gang unit, and targeted patrols were conducted with help from the Lake County Sheriff's Department and Region STOP Team.
Gary police also have adopted a new strategy of targeting the people wreaking the most havoc in the city, Freeman-Wilson said.
“We have changed the rules of the game,” she said.
She estimated the number of people being targeted at fewer than 500. More than 79,900 people lived in Gary in 2014, according to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate.
Offenders have two options, she said.
“The first is get on the straight and narrow,” she said.
If they want to get a job or an education, “we’ll send you to the front of the line,” she said.
The second option, for those who choose to continue engaging in illegal activities, is to be held accountable, she said.
The department is dealing with a manpower shortage, but that has no correlation to the recent spike in homicides, because the number of patrol officers on the street has remained steady, McKinley said.
Thirty police officers have resigned this year, police spokeswoman Lt. Dawn Westerfield said. The department hired 15 last year and two this year, though many of them are still in training.
Preventative measures also can help stem violence, Freeman-Wilson said.
The mayor on Tuesday convened a Call to Action Summit to bring the city’s faith, education, youth, public safety, business and economic development leaders together to develop a comprehensive plan for addressing the city's problems.
“There is nothing that is wrong with the city of Gary that those things that are right about the city of Gary can’t remedy,” she said.
The goal, Freeman-Wilson said, is to change the conversation. Instead of reacting to a rise in homicides, community leaders need to work together to move past the crises and focus more on the root of the problems, she said.
Far too often, the minority gives a false perception of the majority in Gary, said Bishop Tavis L. Grant III, of Greater First Baptist Church in East Chicago.
“The majority of our children are not in gangs, they are not committing crimes, they are not on the pathway to incarceration," he said. "They’re just somebody’s children.”