Guns and Gangs Create Memphis Blues
Violence has long been a cause of the Memphis blues. Since 1960, more than 7,000 murders have occurred there. That includes 1,500 in the last decade; 28 percent of those cases remain unsolved.
The Commercial Appeal investigates that violence in “Wounded City,” which uses photographs, maps, videos, podcasts to complement Marc Perrusquia’s reporting. The far-ranging series explores how guns and gangs are fueling the violence, how hospitals are treating the victims, the challenges law enforcement faces, the despair of citizens trapped in dangerous neighborhoods as well as the community efforts to create hope.
In the first installment, Perrusquia reports these stark facts:
- Eight of ten homicide victims over the past decade were killed with a firearm.
- Victims arrive at the hospital’s Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center with far more wounds than a decade ago, reflecting the availability of semiautomatic weapons.
- The percentage of murder suspects listed as either a stranger or unknown has more than doubled during the last decade to almost 50%.
- The shooters are getting younger: on average 23 now versus 26 just eight years ago.
Perrusquia also reports that, as in many other major cities, much of the violence occurs in a few areas. He writes:
Over those five years, no neighborhood recorded a higher murder rate than Klondike in North Memphis, where a devastating exodus of residents began in the 1970s as nearby industry shuttered.
In 2011, police found James Rucker, 40, and Melodie Weddle, 26, shot to death in a small, brick-veneer home at 830 N. Claybrook in the heart of Klondike. Four years later, at the same address, 32-year-old Thearchie Brown was gunned down. The homicides were three of 11 between 2011 and 2015 in a census tract measuring one-half of a square mile where the murder rate is equivalent to 140 deaths per 100,000 residents — a pace that dwarfs the U.S. rate of 4.9 per 100,000, Memphis’ 2015 citywide rate of 21, even a chilling rate of 90 in Central America’s murderous Honduras.
