Seven hours before Durham City Council received a sobering six-month crime report from the police department Monday, a man was shot and seriously injured in front of a Church’s Chicken on Fayetteville Street.
That was one of 587 aggravated assaults reported in the first six months of the year, which has driven up Durham’s violent crime rate 30 percent compared with the same time period in 2013.
Aggravated assaults have increased 50 percent. However, it’s important to note these crimes are counted by the number of potential and actual victims, not the number of incidents, said Durham Police Deputy Chief of Operations Larry Smith. If DPD counted only incidents, the increase in aggravated assaults would be 32 percent.
In addition, heroin and oxycodone seem to be the best-selling hard drugs in Durham. These are the significant drug seizures, as reported by DPD, from April to June:
• At least 148 grams of heroin (5 ounces)
• 25.8 grams of morphine (177 doses)
• 55 grams of oxycodone (100 doses)
• 392.4 grams of cocaine (13 ounces)
• 4.6 grams of marijuana (about 1.5 ounces)
DPD reported an additional bust of 23.2 grams of heroin, marijuana and crack, but the amounts were not broken out by drug.
At press time, Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield had issued an updated status report on recommendations to improve trust and transparency between the community and city police.
The document updates actions completed, under way, or those requiring no further action.
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This article appeared in print with the headline “Trigger happy”
