If you're calling a press conference to assure the public all is well and to urge everyone to remain calm, chances are there's a bit of reason for concern.
And there was this week in Duluth when our Mayor Emily Larson and Police Chief Mike Tusken met with reporters in the wake of five gun-related crimes in eight days, including three shootings that sent victims to hospitals and two armed robberies, neither of which has been solved.
Unheard of for Duluth, but the flashpoint of violence was just that, our top cop and our highest elected leader said, offering reassurances. The sudden uptick of bad behavior was inconsistent with long-term criminal trends here. The incidents were unrelated, they all happened in different parts of the city, and none were random. So there's no bad guy out there eyeballing you as his next victim.
In other words, Duluth is as safe today as it was before Jan. 21, when the crimes began. We're safer now than we were several decades ago. And, "I don't believe (the rash of incidents this month) is going to be a continuing pattern," Tusken said, according to news reports.
Also, arrests are being made. "We are on it," the mayor said.
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Two men were apprehended immediately after a shooting Jan. 21 at the Lake Superior Bottle Shop, 31 E. First St. One of them was charged with felony second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and the other with possession of a firearm. A 27-year-old man was arrested after an early Sunday shooting in the 2200 block of West Second Street. And police have identified a "person of interest" after a shooting a week ago today at at 702 E. Fourth St.
While the burst of violence may have left some feeling like Duluth has become a crime-ridden place, it's not reality. Give our law enforcement professionals credit for our relatively safe community. And give Tusken and Larson credit for quickly and publicly quelling such rumors, their reassurances backed by hard data: Robberies are down 50 percent since 2008, from 129 to 65 last year. Burglaries dropped 36 percent between 2002 and 2014, from 780 to 503. And assaults decreased 18 percent from 233 in 2002 to 191 in 2014.
"It's a statistical outlier to have three shootings in an eight-day period," Tusken said. "When somebody is shooting a gun, obviously other people may be in harm's way. But these were targeted attacks, people who knew each other; and they were not random."
All of which is reassuring - at a moment when reassurance was called for.
