One July night, two men seeking revenge drove past a Miami-area home and fired indiscriminately into a group of people. Alana Washington, 7, was killed and her baby cousin was injured. Two adults suffered gunshot wounds. Six weeks later, two men were arrested. The young girl’s death was part of a sharp increase in murders in Miami-Dade County in a year upended by the coronavirus pandemic that saw kids home from school, parents losing jobs and social-justice protests heightening tensions between the community and police, the Miami Herald reports. Officials recorded 272 homicides through Dec. 24 across Miami-Dade County, up 31 from all of 2019. The year isn’t over and it’s a recent high, up from 232 in 2017, and 252 in 2015.
Experts attribute the rise to several factors: The pandemic limits community policing and cut positive interaction between police and the public. Gun sales are high. People are stuck at home and frustrated. Kids aren’t in school. The economy has tanked. “I’m not going to blame it on COVID, but it’s a big part of it. Beefs are being settled in the streets with gun violence, which is disturbing. It’s more brazen. Some shootings are in broad daylight. Being home is part of the problem,” said Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez. “We’ve been cooped up for nine months. Our way of life has changed.” The number of people shot nonfatally is up: 311 in Miami-Dade as of Dec. 7, up 16 percent from 2019. “It’s happening in every city and it’s happening at the same time,” said University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero. “Isolating the one thing causing it is impossible. I’ve never seen anything like this. Guns and drug sales don’t go away. But now you have the added stress of anxiety and police not patrolling the way they have in the past.” Sixty-two homicide victims were 21 and under.