Gunfire Trends in Milwaukee, 2017-2023

A review of the Milwaukee Police Department’s call logs indicates that gunfire more than doubled during the pandemic in much of the city. At the same time, the likelihood any given gunfire incident was accompanied by a 911 call reporting “shots fired” declined on the north side, but not the south side. Data from the first 5 months of 2023 shows a modest decline in gunfire compared to the height of the pandemic-era violent crime wave, but levels remain much higher than 2019.

The trouble with just measuring reported crime

Milwaukee’s use of ShotSpotter technology provides a unique opportunity to measure a specific kind of crime in a way that doesn’t entirely depend on crime reports. This is helpful because the likelihood that a given crime is reported to the police varies by time and place.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, violent crime spiked in many American cities. Milwaukee set three annual homicide records in a row. After recording 97 homicides in 2019, the city endured 190 in 2020, 193 in 2021, and 214 in 2022 (according to MPD annual reports). The previous record was 168 in 1991, when the city’s population was about 50,000 more than today.

The summer of 2020 also saw massive protests against police killings of Black Americans, following the murder of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis. Estimates suggest that between 15 and 26 million adults participated in demonstrations across the country during May and early June, making them the largest in American history.

Local crime trends are almost always measured by counting police reports, but these are, by definition, merely reported crimes. The rate at which actual criminal incidents are reported to the police no doubt varies among communities, by type of crime, and over time. The intense scrutiny of policing during the summer of 2020 may well have altered many Milwaukeeans’ likelihood of contacting the police.

The pandemic crime wave coincided with increased controversy over policing, making the relationship between reported crime and actual crime rates even more uncertain. Still, we do have objective data on both occurrences and reports for one type of crime–gunfire.

ShotSpotter uses a network of acoustical sensors to detect and triangulate the locations of gunshots based on the resulting soundwaves. The system covers only a portion of Milwaukee–one section on the north side and a smaller section on the south side. From a technical perspective ShotSpotter seems fairly accurate. An independent quantitative audit of company-provided data found the system was 97% accurate with about a 0.5% false positive rate.

Politically, ShotSpotter is more controversial. Various national organizations criticize the program as an expensive form of police surveillance with little evidence of actual reductions in violence. On the other hand, many local Milwaukeeans, including community activist Vaun Mayes, Director of the Office of Violence Prevention Ashanti Hamilton, and Chair of the Fire & Police Commission Ed Fallone all expressed at least qualified support for the program in recent interviews with the Shepherd Express.

ShotSpotter trends

Every time the ShotSpotter system reports a gunshot, it is logged into the MPD 911 call log under the code “SHOTSPOTTER.” When a human calls 911 to report gunfire, it likewise is logged with the code “SHOTS FIRED.” Each report includes a timestamp and address.

All call log data is published publicly, but the Milwaukee Police Department only keeps 1 hour of incidents online. I obtained records from local software developer Nick Gartmann, who maintains a public repository of historic MPD call logs. He generously provided data covering December 2016 through May 2023, with a few gaps of missing data. The Milwaukee Police Department refused to tell me the boundaries of the ShotSpotter coverage area, but a public information officer did confirm that the coverage area remained unchanged throughout this period. Using the addresses from the call log, I was able to reconstruct the ShotSpotter service areas as shown below.

Roughly, the north side coverage area stretches from I-43 to about 50th St., between the Menomonee Valley to the south and Capitol Drive to the north. The much smaller south side coverage area stretches from about 9th St. to 27th St., from Greenfield Ave. on the north to somewhat south of Lincoln Ave.

ShotSpotter Coverage Areas

Beginning in the summer of 2020, the ShotSpotter data shows an enormous increase in gunfire on the north side coupled with a large increase on the south side.

The north side coverage area recorded an average of 16.1 shots per day in 2019, increasing to 29.6 in 2020 and 39.2 in 2021. Gunfire ticked down slightly in 2022, to 37.5 per day.

The south side coverage area is much smaller. It saw a daily average of 2.9 ShotSpotter reports in 2019. That increased to 3.8 in 2020 and 4.2 in 2021, before falling back to 3.8 last year.

In the month of May alone, ShotSpotter recorded 25 incidents per day on the north side in 2017, falling to 15 in 2018, and 16 in 2019. That jumped to 31 in 2020 and 46 in 2021, before dipping to 42 in 2022 and 36 in 2023. The pattern on the south side has been generally similar.

bar plot showing average daily ShotSpotter reports for each month, Dec. 2016 - May 2023

In 2023, ShotSpotter incidents through May are slightly down since last year in the north side and slightly up on the south side. Compared to Jan – May of 2019, ShotSpotter reports are still up by 172% on the north side, compared with a 48% increase on the south side.

Average ShotSpotter reports per day in City of Milwaukee coverage areas

yearannualJan – May
north sidesouth sidenorth sidesouth side
201719.33.220.22.9
201814.23.312.23.7
201916.12.913.52.5
202029.63.819.22.5
202139.24.238.24.1
202237.53.838.03.5
2023——36.73.7
Analysis of MPD call logs by John Johnson. Records are missing for some days, so this show the average for available days in each period.

ShotSpotter incidents vs. reports

To get a sense of how often gunshots identified by ShotSpotter also result in a 911 call, I applied the following simple test. I drew a circle with a half mile radius around the ShotSpotter alert location. Then, I checked if a contemporaneous 911 call for “shots fired” had occurred at any point inside that circle. To account for delays in the ShotSpotter upload process, I included any call that occurred within 10 minutes either before or after the ShotSpotter timestamp.

The graph below shows the results in the north and south side coverage areas for the past 7 years.

Only a small fraction of gunshots are reported to the police. Based on this analysis, just 5.1%, or about 3,300 out of 63,900 ShotSpotter reports since 2017 have been accompanied by a 911 call reporting “shots fired” within 10 minutes and half a mile of the identified location.

In 2017, similar shares of ShotSpotter reports resulted in 911 calls on both the north and south side coverage areas. Since then, the trajectories have diverged.

On the north side, the share of shots accompanied with a 911 call has declined every year beginning in 2019. The share of calls being reported has dropped from 5.7% in 2017 to 3.6% in 2023 through May. That’s a decline of more than a third.

On the south side, the share of ShotSpotter reports accompanied with a 911 call hovered between 5.1% and 6.2% throughout 2017-2022. Through May of this year, it has shot up to 7.6%. Through the first 5 months of 2023, gunshots appear to be twice as likely to result in a 911 call in the south side service area than the north side service area. That gap didn’t exist before the pandemic.

bar plot showing proportion of ShotSpotter reports accompanied by a 911 call reporting gunfire, annual statistics for each service area

Implications

This data reinforces the importance of remembering that crime reports are just that–incidents residents actively choose to report to the police. In conversation, I’ve heard from many Milwaukee residents that they rarely report gunfire and property crime to the police, simply because they view it as a pointless and frustrating waste of time. This data analysis indicates that (1) only a very small share of gunfire incidents are ever called in to 911, and (2) that small share has declined even further on the north side of the city, as the frequency of shootings more than doubled during the pandemic.

Continue ReadingGunfire Trends in Milwaukee, 2017-2023

Milwaukee Police Chief Asks the Public: “Our Hand Is Out. Meet Us Halfway.”

We’re all in this together. If we want a safer Milwaukee, we need people to come together to trust law enforcement, to build healthy connections in neighborhoods, to provide help to those who might otherwise be headed for trouble. Law enforcement can’t do it alone.

That was the broad message from the Milwaukee area’s two top law enforcement leaders during an “On the Issues” program Thursday, June 1, 2023, at Eckstein Hall.

The most powerful statement of the theme came from Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman. Derek Mosley, director of the Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education and moderator of the program, asked Norman and Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball what they consider the most pressing need of the departments they lead.   

“I’ve said it time and time again: It’s trust. It’s trust that we are doing the right things for the right reasons for you all,” Norman responded, gesturing to the audience of about 200.

Norman, who was named acting chief in 2020 and given the full title in 2021, urged people to leave behind past problems with some of his predecessors. Holding on to the past hampers moving forward, and the department has changed, he said.  

“We have a different culture in the Milwaukee Police Department,” he said. “Believe me. Accountability is real. But we have a lot of great men and women doing work to keep our community safe. And I stand on that.

“It’s important for all of you to know that this is a different department. It’s a different department. Give us that benefit of the doubt. It’s a partnership. It’s not a one-way vehicle here. We can’t get to reckless driving, we can’t get to violent crime, we can’t get to the things that are going on in our neighborhoods if we do not trust each other.

“Our hand is out. Meet us halfway.” He held out his hand as he spoke.

Ball jokingly responded to Norman’s impassioned call by saying, “All right, rev.”

She agreed that trust is important. But she said staffing is the biggest challenge for the sheriff’s department, with need for both more deputies to patrol freeways, parks, and the airport and more people to work in the Milwaukee County Jail, which she oversees.

Norman, who is a 2002 graduate of Marquette Law School, also said staffing is a continuing issue for the police department.

Earlier in the program, Mosley referred to the killings at the Christmas parade in Waukesha in 2021 and at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., in 2022. He asked if tragedies such as those affected preparations for large events in Milwaukee this summer.

Norman said law enforcement plans for what can be done to minimize chances of such crises, including more use of physical barriers, more visible presence of officers, and more work with community groups ahead of and during events. But, he said, events such as the killings in Highland Park by someone who was in a building overlooking the parade can be hard to prevent.

Emphasizing the theme of partnering with the community, he said a big part of what can be done is information and help from citizens. “It’s you all,“ he said. The slogan , “If you see something, say something,” is important, he said. Tips from citizens are valuable.

Ball said the sheriff’s department has built up its relationships with the 19 municipal police departments in Milwaukee County and with other law enforcement agencies. “We are better together,” she said.

Norman said collaboration among agencies was valuable and can increase effectiveness. As he put it, “You’ve got the peanut butter, I’ve got the jelly, let’s make a sandwich.”

The two took several questions and comments from the audience. One person asked how police judge whether to react strongly or stand back when there is major disorder. Norman responded, “I’m not going to allow death and destruction on my watch.”

To watch video of the program, click here.

Continue ReadingMilwaukee Police Chief Asks the Public: “Our Hand Is Out. Meet Us Halfway.”

Two of Milwaukee’s corporate landlords are selling houses. One is making huge profits while the other is losing money.

Three large, private equity-backed corporate landlords operate in Milwaukee’s house rental market. All three began buying lots of Milwaukee houses in 2018 or 2019, and they ended 2022 owning just shy of 1,500 homes in total. The largest, VineBrook Homes, bought over 450 houses in Milwaukee last year, according to city parcel records.

But all three companies mostly ceased buying houses by late 2022, and in fact, two of the three have spent early 2023 selling houses. One of the companies, SFR3, has made double the money it spent to buy those properties. The other company, VineBrook, has actually lost money on these transactions. The third company, Highgrove Holdings, ended its buying spree months before the other two, and likewise hasn’t sold anything recently.

The different trajectories of these three companies give clues to their financial health, business strategy, and potential consequences they may have on Milwaukee neighborhoods.

In some ways SFR3 and VineBrook follow similar business models. Both are private companies which raise money by selling securities to qualified investors. Over the past few years, each has bought thousands of cheap houses across cities in the midwest and south.

In Milwaukee, each focuses on single family homes usually worth around $100,000. They mainly buy homes on the north side of the city–either north of Capitol Drive or west of 35th Street. VineBrook is much larger. At the end of 2022, they owned about 950 houses in Milwaukee and 27,000 across the country. SFR3 owned about 240 in Milwaukee, while their website claims “thousands of single-family rentals” in total. Neither are primarily flippers; instead, they follow a buy-to-rent business model.

Before 2023, I can find no records of VineBrook selling a single house in Milwaukee. SFR3 was more willing to flip their recent acquisitions, selling 14 in 2021 and 45 in 2022. Through mid-May 2023, SFR3 has recorded 25 more house sales and VineBrook 13.

I was able to directly compare the sale price with the purchase price in 23 of SFR3’s sales this year. They paid $2,084,630 for those 23 properties, owned them for an average of 67 weeks, and sold them for $4,218,000–a profit rate of 102%. Twenty of the houses were sold to an owner-occupier, according to transaction returns filed with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Direct comparisons were possible for 11 of VineBrook’s 2023 sales, all of which took place between March 16th and May 12th. VineBrook paid $966,112 for these 11 properties, owned them for an average of 103 weeks, and sold them for $909,500–a loss of 6%. They only sold one of these properties to an owner-occupier.

SFR3 made a profit in each comparable home sale–not counting any rehab expenses. Their biggest gain came on a house they bought on the 1500 block of N. 57th Street, in the Washington Heights neighborhood. They paid $153,000 in November 2021 and sold it for $331,000 in February 2023.

VineBrook lost money in 6 sales and sold for more than they spent in 5. Their biggest gain was just $15,000. They paid $85,000 in June 2021 for a house on the 2900 block of N. 46th St, and they sold it for $100,000 in May 2023.

Their worst loss came just a few blocks away, on the 2300 block of N. 47th. That house was purchased out of foreclosure by an owner-occupier for $33,000 in December 2019. Then, that buyer sold to VineBrook for $109,000 in December 2020. VineBrook sold it to another owner-occupier for $50,000 in April 2023. This appears to be the rare instance where two owner-occupiers made out well at the expense of a private equity firm.

Why is SFR3 so much better at selling for a profit than VineBrook? It appears that SFR3 is both a savvier buyer and a more patient seller than its larger rival. Take those 23 SFR3 sale comparisons from this year. When SFR3 bought them, they paid just 89% of the then-assessed value of the properties. When they sold, they received 162% of the current assessed value. (Assessed values are based on property sales in the previous year or two.)

By comparison, VineBrook originally payed 115% of the assessed value of the houses it went on to sell in 2023. When it sold them, it received just 83% of the current assessed value.

SFR3 made shrewder purchases to begin with, but it also made more money by selling to owner-occupiers who are willing to pay top dollar. VineBrook apparently overpaid for houses to begin with, and it also appears to be selling hastily, usually to other landlords.

VineBrook’s troubles extend far beyond Milwaukee. In January, they forfeited $41 million in initial deposits after terminating purchase agreements to buy about 2,900 more houses (not in Wisconsin). This contributed to their $92.4 million net loss in the first quarter of 2023. By comparison, VineBrook reported a net loss of $2.7 million in the first quarter of 2022. VineBrook also faces challenges from rising interest rates. As of March 31, the company’s total debt was $2.6 billion, of which $1.9 billion was in floating interest rate loans.

In an April 2023 letter to shareholders, VineBrook’s CFO described their intention to “opportunistically pursue dispositions that offer the ability to recycle capital into accretive opportunities and reduce our exposure to sub-scale markets. In addition to using net proceeds from sales to further fund our revitalization program, we intend to use the remaining net proceeds to de-lever the Company, improving our balance sheet and the strength of the Company.”

In plain English, the company intends to spend 2023 selling houses in order to pay off debt.

Highgrove Holdings and SFR3 aren’t required to make the same kinds of detailed financial disclosures, so we have less insight into the health of their balance sheets. Still, the fact that SFR3 only sells their homes for substantial profits, while Highgrove has sold nothing at all, suggests that they don’t currently face the same financial crunch as VineBrook.

As Milwaukee’s home rental market grows more consolidated, we may see more situations where large landlords facing financial difficulties seek to offload many properties at once. VineBrook’s current willingness to sell their houses at relatively cheap prices has mainly just benefited other landlords. The house on 47th Street described above is the exceptional case in which VineBrook’s struggles actually benefited a local homeowner.

Continue ReadingTwo of Milwaukee’s corporate landlords are selling houses. One is making huge profits while the other is losing money.