{"id":559473,"date":"2025-11-09T14:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/559473\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T14:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:03:11","slug":"trump-claims-the-national-guard-makes-cities-safer-birmingham-halved-its-homicide-rate-all-on-its-own-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/559473\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump claims the national guard makes cities safer. Birmingham halved its homicide rate all on its own | Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The national conversation about crime is being driven by rhetorical attacks \u2013 and national guard call-ups \u2013 by Donald Trump<\/a>, who routinely demonizes places like Chicago, Washington DC, Portland and even New York City, which has a lower homicide rate than Orlando, Florida, home to Disneyland.<\/p>\n

Somehow, we don\u2019t talk about Birmingham.<\/p>\n

Birmingham\u2019s murder rate in 2024 was higher than all but one large city \u2013 St Louis \u2013 in 2024. About 195,000 people live in Birmingham. During the first 286 days of 2024, Birmingham tallied 132 murders, an annualized rate of 86.3 per 100,000 residents. The national average is 5 per 100,000.<\/p>\n

Yet, over the same period this year, Birmingham recorded 63 murders, fewer than half as many killings as in 2024 with nary a national guard soldier in sight.<\/p>\n

Crime goes up \u2013 and down \u2013 for many reasons. Like Baltimore<\/a> and many other large cities in the US today, murder in Birmingham is waning. Local observers attribute some of the change to a reversal of the social dynamics that led to a spike in violence during the pandemic. Some point to the work of a revitalized police department with new leadership, and to the work of the city\u2019s new, robust violence intervention program.<\/p>\n

Violence in the US tends to concentrate among poor and marginalized people. Criminologists look at clusters of poverty as nodes for crime. But they may not have had Damien McDaniel in mind.<\/p>\n

One year ago this week, Birmingham police arrested McDaniel and ultimately charged him with committing 18 murders over a 14-month period, including two mass shootings that together left eight people dead and dozens injured. State and federal prosecutors accuse McDaniel of being a drug gang enforcer and paid assassin with no real connection to the people he killed.<\/p>\n

The proportion of violence implicit in McDaniel\u2019s charges has little precedent in a city of Birmingham\u2019s size. Of the city\u2019s 138 murders in 2024, McDaniel is charged in 11 of them \u2013 or about one out of every 12 homicides. The start of Birmingham\u2019s sharply declining homicide rate begins the week police arrested McDaniel and his eight co-defendants a year ago.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably a mistake to say that one arrest has solved Birmingham\u2019s crime problem. Most of the time, big double-digit reductions in homicide rates come with a similar improvement in aggravated assault rates. Not so with Birmingham. Year-to-date on 13 October, the city\u2019s aggravated assault rate has only fallen by 1.4%, compared with a 52.3% decrease in homicides.<\/p>\n

Birmingham recorded half as many deaths from roughly the same number of shootings this year. Fewer people are being shot dead, but people are still regularly getting shot. Perhaps this is why for many of the Magic City residents, despite the McDaniel arrest, a lower murder rate doesn\u2019t feel different, yet.<\/p>\n

Maurice Allen talked about getting shot one day in Birmingham like it was weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t care no more,\u201d Allen said as he walked down McMillon Avenue where a man had been shot dead in broad daylight the day before. \u201cThey shoot each other for no reason, over five dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Literally. The target of the shooting two years ago was his former roommate, who owed five dollars to a guy with bad intentions, Allen said. No arrest was ever made, because his roommate wouldn\u2019t identify the shooter. Allen is a military veteran and has been unhoused in the past. \u201cI was a soldier for eight years,\u201d he said. \u201cI did security. Bounty hunting. And I never got shot. \u2026 You get to where you don\u2019t even flinch no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

This kind of despair is symptomatic of the legacy of violence in Birmingham, and has been incubating for a long time.<\/p>\n

Unlike much of the sunbelt south, growth has eluded Birmingham. It lost its place as Alabama\u2019s largest city to Huntsville and the space industry in 2021. The city ranks near the top of lists for poverty, with a rate of 25% in 2024, about twice the national average and 10 points higher than Alabama<\/a> overall. Six of Birmingham\u2019s census tracts had poverty rates over 50% in 2020, all of which coincide with dramatically higher rates of violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about crime trends \u2026 it\u2019s very focused, because it\u2019s usually not just somebody that\u2019s just moved in, not a transplant,\u201d said Christopher Anderson, chief of police at Talladega College outside Birmingham, who worked for decades investigating homicides in the city. \u201cIt\u2019s usually somebody that\u2019s from that area that\u2019s been there for a long time. They\u2019ve grown and been raised there, and they\u2019ve been groomed to this criminal aspect for their entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randall Woodfin took over as mayor in 2017. Then a 36-year-old progressive backed by Bernie Sanders, Woodfin became the youngest Birmingham mayor since the 19th century. His platform focused on addressing blight and poverty across the city, which had been feeding crime.<\/p>\n

Woodfin convened a commission to come up with answers for Birmingham\u2019s crime problem in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you bring a banker into a crime-fighting meeting?\u201d said Anderson of Talladega College, who served on the commission. \u201cBut it actually worked, because this banker can offer some sort of subsidies or opportunities for somebody that needs an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Randall Woodfin outside his childhood home in north Birmingham, Alabama, in February. Photograph: Charity Rachelle\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The report lists more than 70 items, but prominently features deterrence \u2013 concentrating resources around the small number of people responsible for the vast majority of violence.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s conclusions also prioritized homicide reduction, support for the city\u2019s new violence intervention program, resources to address the underlying causes of crime and addressing police staffing attrition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat people don\u2019t understand is the time that really, truly has to go into a homicide investigative case where you have no real connection between the victim and the suspect,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThat was a common theme in a lot of these homicides that were happening here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was somebody who wanted to kill this person, and that\u2019s it. I don\u2019t want your shoes. I don\u2019t want your money. I don\u2019t want anything but you, dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damien Laron McDaniel III had no problem talking about street violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA motherfucker do the same thing to you, so why not do it to them? Why show them compassion?\u201d he said to a YouTube documentarian last year.<\/p>\n

The string of 18 murders prosecutors have charged McDaniel with begin with Birmingham firefighter Jordan Melton<\/a>. Prosecutors allege that McDaniel ambushed him in June 2023 to silence him before he could testify in a murder trial.<\/p>\n

The victims have little connection to each other, or to McDaniel. Mia Chardell Nickson, 21, shot dead in her driveway. Anthony Lamar Love, Jr, a 44-year-old UPS driver killed in the parking lot at the end of his shift. Christan Norris, 20, and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Angeliyah Webster, murdered on Valentine\u2019s Day last year, found separately only moments after a mass shooting that left four dead. One of them was Birmingham mayor Woodfin\u2019s cousin.<\/p>\n

Woodfin made a plea after this shooting, which had no clear motive. \u201cEven now, Birmingham police are working tirelessly to find answers, but they cannot do it alone,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m confident that someone reading this knows something \u2026 Justice cannot be achieved in the dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cPray for the hurting families. Pray for justice. Pray for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even then, the mass shooting<\/a> at the Hush lounge on Birmingham\u2019s south side in September 2024 stood out for the indiscriminate violence of it. Gunmen sprayed more than 100 rounds from an automatic weapon into a crowd of patrons waiting to enter the club at around 11pm, leaving four people dead and 17 others wounded in the worst mass shooting in Birmingham\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Police say McDaniel had targeted one of the dead in a murder-for-hire scheme. The shooting was the third quadruple homicide in Birmingham last year.<\/p>\n

The aftermath of the Hush lounge shooting in Birmingham, on 21 September 2024. Photograph: Drew Hawkins\/Gulf States Newsroom\/ReutersThe Hush lounge the day after the shooting. Photograph: Vasha Hunt\/AP<\/p>\n

McDaniel is accused of being a shooter in one of the other two.<\/p>\n

Police have not yet identified which of the people killed might have been his target. Police arrested Ny\u2019Quan Lollar and Crishawn Ja\u2019mel McLemore-Bruce in March and charged them with capital murder in connection to the Hush shooting.<\/p>\n

McDaniel faces the death penalty. In a lengthy Facebook post, he proclaimed his innocence and accused police of illegally searching his home and tracking his vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely not asking for pity,\u201d the post states. \u201cThis is for me because I see how the world is trying to portray me to be and no I\u2019m not mad but I will not allow you all to defame my character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian \u201cFish\u201d Greene struggled to get the attention of a Birmingham cop on the street corner outside the Jefferson county courthouse on a rainy day last month. Fish was pleading for someone to do something about the two teenagers who had just put Glocks fitted with switches in his face outside of a playground. Fish and his partner bundled their child into the car and drove the 60 seconds it takes to get to the courthouse and the nearest sworn police officer they could find.<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s deputies told them to call 911.<\/p>\n

It took 45 minutes to get Birmingham police to respond.<\/p>\n

The officer encouraged them to call 911.<\/p>\n

Fish was apoplectic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are eight officers in this county jail!\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re fittin\u2019 to kill somebody\u2019s child, man!\u201d<\/p>\n

The officer left. Fish sat with the mother of his child on the corner, defeated.<\/p>\n

Fish was still in mourning. His grandmother Aldorthia Burrell had been killed sitting on her porch two weeks earlier. At the time, no arrest had been made, and he was still edgy.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody should be on the school grounds with no guns,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve actually seen somebody running behind a car, using a switch. You can\u2019t control them. Those bullets go everywhere. Half of them will be dispersed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost everyone in Birmingham knows about the McDaniel arrest. Few say they feel safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just perception,\u201d said Dr Carolyn Russell-Walker, principal of Ramsay high school in Birmingham. \u201cIt\u2019s how you feel, and if it\u2019s somebody who you\u2019ve been impacted by the violence, then you\u2019re going to feel more deeply about it than another person. And if it\u2019s been your neighbor, of course your whole neighborhood is going to wonder if it\u2019s your house next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsay sits on a hill overlooking the Five Points neighborhood. It\u2019s a two-minute walk to the Hush lounge shooting site.<\/p>\n

The media repetitively covers every lurid killing in Birmingham, regardless of whether violence is increasing or decreasing, Russell-Walker noted. Her students are looking for change, and they\u2019re aware that much of the violence involves people their age. The school system has put mental health programs and violence intervention into place, she said, highlighting Common Ground, which responds to trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I do think there\u2019s violence, I also think there are a lot of other good things and if we can really push out the good things, then the violence won\u2019t look like it\u2019s winning because it\u2019s really not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Violence is driven by retaliation and the availability of guns, said Richard Bender, speaking on the sidewalk outside a public housing project in east Birmingham.<\/p>\n

As Birmingham\u2019s violence reached its peak in 2023, Alabama passed \u201cconstitutional carry\u201d legislation for firearms. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to have a license,\u201d Bender said. \u201cSo long as you don\u2019t have a violent record, you can get anything off the shelf. You\u2019ve got children running around here with guns \u2026 anytime you see someone with a book bag on? There\u2019s a pistol in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bender sees the state and federal government as hostile to the city and prepared to act at cross-purposes in its quest to reduce violence. The national guard\u2019s presence would only provide targets for violence.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Roscoe, a professional wrestler, recited a litany of problems as he was packing some gear into the back of his car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe perception of what\u2019s going on is lack of proper communication, lack of addressing problems,\u201d he said, \u201cnot minding their business, not knowing what\u2019s really going on, lack of proper self-defense without guns, lack of counseling resources, lack of mentoring programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is aware that violence is decreasing. He feels it, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say, people are coming together, because they\u2019re getting tired of everything,\u201d Roscoe said. \u201cI will give the city a lot of credit. We\u2019re tired. Every day is something for nothing. When we get tired, we do stand together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The national conversation about crime is being driven by rhetorical attacks \u2013 and national guard call-ups \u2013 by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-559473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115520117458666656","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}