The Chattanooga gun crime trend lines are going the wrong way.
Gun crimes in the city rose from 106 in 2019 to 141 in 2020, and not even 100 days in 2021 nine more people have been shot here than were shot over the same time in 2020.
Fatalities from those crimes rose from 27 in 2019 to 30 in 2020, seemingly an insignificant jump to some but an actual 11% rise. Non-fatal shootings rose from 100 to 138, a 38% increase.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke can point to a drop in gang shootings from around 73 when he entered office in 2013 to an average of 26 in the last three years. But gun crimes continue to grow.
In just over a month, though, it will be a new mayor's responsibility. Businessman Tim Kelly and former River City Company CEO Kim White vie in a runoff April 13 to replace the term-limited mayor.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga shootings, homicides up in 2021 so far compared to 2020)
However, neither candidate, according to information on their campaign websites, has articulated a detailed plan on how they'd reduce gun crimes.
Both vow more community collaboration, more community policing, more minority recruitment, a closer relationship with the Police Advisory and Review Committee, better compensation for first responders, more and better training, a closer relationship with other law enforcement agencies, use of the latest tools, and the use of mental health and other services when called for.
White, who has been endorsed by the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, does acknowledge "an uptick in violent crimes."
"[Police] Chief David Roddy's approach is the right approach," she says on her campaign website, "having police officers familiar with the community, establishing positive relationships, and working and communicating with neighborhood leaders."
Kelly notes that "we all share a common ideal for the type of community that we would like to live in: one that is safe."
"It is the responsibility of the City," he says on his website, "to create and promote a common-sense approach to criminal justice that works for all Chattanoogans."
Neither address the trend of violent crime, which has shown a local rise - as it has across the country - following the pandemic shutdowns last spring and then the death of Black suspect George Floyd by white Minneapolis police officers last May.
The individual incidents in the city's recent shooting spree that left one dead and five injured in four days are not related to each other as often happens in the case with gang violence.
But it should be as concerning for the mayoral candidates as it is for the citizens in the neighborhoods in which the shootings took place.
"[T]here is nothing specific that would have 'predicted' [the recent violence]," police spokesperson Sgt. Jeremy Eames told Times Free Press reporter Rosana Hughes Sunday by email. "However, it still seems consistent with the nationwide trend of pandemic-related gun violence that we are experiencing. Nice weekends equate to more people being out and more opportunity for violence. Every incident this weekend is being considered random, and [they] are in no way connected."
Eames went on to note how even random shootings - which in the most recent spree included the wounding of a 14-year-old boy - are everybody's business.
"Any time violence occurs in one of our neighborhoods or to one of our citizens, it has us all concerned," he said. "This weekend's violence directly affected six people. But those six people are part of six families, families who probably don't feel as safe now. Those families are all part of a community, communities that are all a part of this city. This does - and it should - affect us all."
Almost three years ago, the Chattanooga Police Department established a gun unit that would link guns to crimes, and within a year it became a nationally recognized model for how mid-sized cities can track - and hopefully reduce - gun violence. The gun unit plan, and attendant technology, had been approved by the Chattanooga City Council the previous year at a cost of $1.7 million, the single largest personnel expense for the police department that year.
Since that recognition, the numbers of gun crimes have trended up.
The two mayoral candidates can talk about collaboration and compensation and training and tools and relationships and recruitment - all goals - but neighborhood residents just want to know how to stop the shooting. If there were a magic solution, it already would have been shared across the country. But the public wants to know how Kelly and White plan to handle it.