Lexington police chief says ‘it’s not just one thing’ causing recent homicide spike

Fifteen Lexington homicides early in 2021 have prompted community members to raise alarms about increasing “group violence,” but the Lexington police chief doesn’t believe the issue stands solely with gangs or other group-related crime.

Chief Lawrence Weathers on Thursday said Lexington’s recent spike in homicides hasn’t been due to one specific cause, like gang violence or retaliations among groups. Lexington set new homicide records in 2019 and 2020. Homicide cases in 2021 are outpacing numbers from 2020.

“All these homicides have different variables associated with them,” Weathers said in a press conference Thursday. “They don’t have one common thread. Some of them happen for what some of the people might be involved in. Some of them are just personal altercations.”

Weathers’ comments came two days after members of a local advocacy group called BUILD (Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-action) hosted a rally earlier this week in which they said they believed group violence was the primary culprit in Lexington’s shootings.

“I know the city continues to say we don’t have a group violence problem,” Pastor Joseph Owens told the Herald-Leader earlier this week. Owens is the pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church “But it’s pretty obvious when there’s one homicide and there’s multiple people involved with others, many of them within blocks of each other.”

Weathers on Thursday acknowledged some of the people involved in Lexington’s homicides have gang affiliations. But he said the causes of homicides are arising from issues outside of those affiliations.

“Yeah, we do have some of the people who are victims and some of the people who are suspects that might be affiliated with some of those things,” Weathers said. “But what’s driving these homicides, like I said, is really those things that have nothing to do with their involvement in groups.

“It has everything to do with what kind of activities they might be involved in that are criminal, separate from their group involvement.”

Weathers also said sometimes there are just personal conflicts that people “somehow seem to settle with a firearm.”

Lawrence Weathers, Lexington police chief, discusses a recent spike in homicides and gun violence during a media conference in Lexington, Ky., on Thursday, April 22, 2021.
Lawrence Weathers, Lexington police chief, discusses a recent spike in homicides and gun violence during a media conference in Lexington, Ky., on Thursday, April 22, 2021.

Lexington police efforts to solve, prevent homicides

As investigators make efforts to solve recent homicides and prevent future ones, Weathers said the community needs to “reflect on what it is we value most.”

“We need to somehow get those values out there to the people who are perpetrating those crimes,” he said.

Weathers also said homicides are “very personal” and happen in places police aren’t likely to be at.

“We can’t be everywhere at once,” he said. “This is not something the police themselves is going to be able to stem.”

Because of that, Weathers has frequently asked community members to contact police if they have information about a homicide or are concerned that a conflict between people could lead to a violent crime in the future. Eleven of the city’s homicides in 2021 are still open cases, according to Lexington police data.

On Thursday Weathers assured residents that tips provided to police are thoroughly investigated, but corroborating information in homicide cases can require search warrants, additional interviews, and additional evidence collection. But tips always help “get that ball rolling.”

“If you come up to me and say ‘I heard so-and-so committed this crime,’ and I don’t have anybody else that can verify that – I can go talk to the suspect if they named the suspect and if the suspect doesn’t want to talk to me or anything like that – then I’ve got to find other ways to maybe try to corroborate that,” Weathers said. “Those things take time.”

Homicide investigations can take as long as two years to successfully solve, he said.

“But rest assured, all that information is taken and all that information is looked at and investigated,” Weathers said. “And if we can use it, we use it. And if we can’t, then we have to go other places.”

Sgt. Donnell Gordon said the police department urges people to submit anonymous information on Bluegrass Crime Stoppers, which can sometimes help police gain information about potentially violent conflicts before they happen.

“That actually helps us out a lot of times that we don’t even know what’s going on, but there are ‘beefs’ ... that are going on between people,” Gordon said. He said the information gets sent to detectives who will often report back that the tips were helpful in understanding and resolving gun violence.

“That really can move an investigation in the right direction,” he said.

Anonymous tips can be submitted to Bluegrass Crime Stoppers by calling (859) 253-2020, online at www.bluegrasscrimestoppers.com, or through the P3 tips app available at www.p3tips.com.