Memphis police chief: Most homicide victims know killer, 8% are strangers. What else to know

The majority of Memphis' homicides this year have taken place between people who know one another, the Memphis Police Department said Tuesday afternoon.

Department data showed that only 8% of this year's homicides involved a victim not knowing their killer. The data was presented to the Memphis City Council during a crime update as the year comes to a close.

About 30% of homicides involved people who knew one another, and 50%, according to MPD Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis, had unknown relationships, but that category is listed as "unknown" because they could not "100% validate that it was a stranger or somebody in the family, or something of that nature."

"When you talk about 300 homicides, it's not that there were all these incidents where people didn't know each other," Davis said. "A lot of them did know each other... It's not like you've got murderers on the loose just randomly [killing people]."

Councilmembers, like Council Chairman Martavius Jones, expressed surprise at the breakdown from MPD, saying that the narrative around homicides and shootings makes Memphis seem more random and deadly compared to other cities.

"What has people scared to walk outside their homes is that they think that there's some stranger that's going to come up to you and you're going to be a victim now," Jones said. "I know that it was a tragic situation for every person that's on this list here, but I think that it says a lot to think that of the homicides that we have, that only 8% of them involved strangers. That's a different narrative that Memphis is the most violent city out here and you shouldn't go to Memphis and you shouldn't go outside after eight o'clock."

Jones said the city, and also the media, "don't do a good enough job of putting that information out there," which Davis agreed with. Davis suggested, following Jones' comments, that a separate, publicly accessible database be put on MPD's website that would track data like that.

Currently, Davis said, that data is available but is part of the City of Memphis' databases, including a tally of incidents reported, and can be difficult to locate. A reporter with The Commercial Appeal searched for the breakdown of known and stranger homicides, similar to what Davis presented Tuesday, and could not locate a database on the city's website for it.

Homicide record surpassed

The data MPD presented Tuesday came after Memphis surpassed its previous record for homicides, which was set at 346 in 2021. With just under a month and a half left in the year, Memphis reached 352 homicides.

Those homicide numbers include murders but also include "justified homicides," traffic-related homicides and suicides. According to the data presented Tuesday, Memphis has reported 31 unjustified homicides and murders so far this year.

A further breakdown of those homicide stats MPD presented showed that the majority of homicides that MPD had identified a cause in were due to non-domestic violence-related disagreements. So far this year 116, or 33%, of homicides were traced back to that.

The next-highest group for homicides was domestic violence-related. Those incidents make up 11% of 2023's homicides and include a recent high-profile series of shootings where a man is accused of shooting, and killing, four relatives and injuring a fifth.

"...We're seeing more domestic violence incidents that are occurring with the use of weapons," Davis said. "Weapons are more prevalent in those situations now, whereas in the past we've responded to domestic violence where there were two individuals that physically were in a fight. Now we're seeing just simple conflicts escalate to shooting, which is very tragic."

Crime across the board has gone up in Memphis, and the city is on pace to surpass the previous record crime rate set in 1996.

Following a mass shooting that left eight people injured in mid-August, outgoing Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland told The Commercial Appeal that the ease of access to guns was "directly correlated" with the increase in shootings and gun deaths seen across the city, and across the country.

"It is a completely different world than it was 10 or 20 years ago with respect to the number of guns on American streets," Strickland said in August. "As the United States, and as Tennessee in particular, have loosened restrictions on guns, there are, as a result, more guns on the streets and more shootings and more gun deaths. It's directly correlated."

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In particular, Strickland pointed to a 2013 law that allows Tennesseans to keep guns in their cars so long as they are secured. Many vehicle break-ins, Strickland said at the time, have been traced to people looking for guns stored in cars. Davis has echoed that sentiment in past appearances before the Memphis City Council as well.

"When the state allowed guns in cars, the theft of guns from cars skyrocketed," he said. "In talking to police officers, that's the number one reason these people are breaking into cars. It's to steal guns. I think each of the last few years there have been over 2,000 guns per year stolen from Memphis cars. Those are being used to perform illegal acts. They're not going hunting with those guns. I think [state legislation] is a major contributor to gun violence in Memphis."

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis police chief CJ Davis talks about city's homicide rate