Violent crime is generally down in Connecticut cities. Bridgeport, the state’s most populous community at roughly 150,000, posted 12 homicides in 2024, Hartford 22 and New Haven 14, according to police statistics.
Bridgeport had 19 homicides in 2023 and the number halved from 24 in 2020 to the end of 2024.
This is good news for Bridgeport, but it’s hard to parse the ups and downs, some of it economically, educationally, professionally driven. Usually, the ups tell a graphic story.
As a young police reporter in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a dozen or so murders told the story, some mob-connected hits, during the city’s guys and dolls era. It’s the way they did business. I was a kid chasing down ambulances, fire engines, and police cars.
In November 1985, I joined the mayoral administration of Tom Bucci, and the way they did business just a few years removed was dramatically violent with different people emerging.
The hell spasm of the national crack cocaine epidemic blew up several Bridgeport neighborhoods, competing drug gangs eliminating the competition. What a mess.
Bridgeport suffered 40, 50, 60 murders a year. Yes, those are not typos.
The institutional safety-net protectors, such as churches, also suffered. Parishioners, afraid to leave their homes, found it a leap of faith to relax on their porches…such was the gunfire. Better to hunker down.
Bucci prevailed upon federal law enforcement officials to get involved because locals lacked the resources.
That kind of violence is not fixed overnight. Things did not loosen up until about a decade later.
Fast forward to today: Chief Roderick Porter is big on community policing: cops that get to know the community, building trust, staying visible. You don’t want to lose community connectors to other departments. Taxpayers invest in this stuff.
So, 12 murders is never a good thing, but much much better than it used to be.
From News 12:
New numbers compiled by the Bridgeport Police Department’s Crime Analysis Unit show a steady decrease in both fatal and non-fatal shootings between 2020 and today.
“In 2020 we had a five-year high of 24 homicides, which went all the way down to 12 homicides in 2024 – a full 50% drop,” said Chief Roderick Porter on Thursday.
“Non-fatal shootings also went steadily downward during that same time period — from 138 non-fatal shootings in 2020 to 53 in 2024,” Porter said.
Mayor Joe Ganim attributes the trends to an increase in community policing techniques and to an increase in the number of officers on the streets.
Full story here
