Greensboro set an all-time record for homicides with 74 in 2023.
In 2022, Greensboro had a total of 42 homicides. So, 74 in 2023 is a 76 percent increase over the previous year. The average number of homicides a year in Greensboro is 48, meaning in 2023 Greensboro had 52 percent more homicides than the average year.
In 2023, the number of homicides in Greensboro had exceeded the number in 2022 and equaled the average of 48 on August 21. At that point there was no question that Greensboro would set a new record in 2023. The only question was how high the number would be.
The past record for homicides was 2020 when there were 62 homicides. The number of homicides fell to 53 in 2021 and then continued on a downward trend in 2022 with 42 homicides.
On June 30, 2023, the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) was down about 130 officers from the total number of sworn positions authorized in the budget of 689. On July 1, the number of vacancies in the GPD fell to 90, which sounds like a vast improvement. However, the number of sworn police officers didn’t increase – what the 2023-2024 budget did was reduce the number of sworn positions in the budget from 689 to 649.
Having 90 vacancies looks a lot better on paper than having 130, and from a budgeting standpoint it makes sense to eliminate unfilled positions that there is no chance of filling in the upcoming fiscal year. But it doesn’t put any additional police officers out on the street.
The City Council did take action in the budget to attempt to help recruit new officers to the Greensboro Police Department by raising the starting salary to $55,000 and raising all the police salaries in accordance with the increase in the starting salary. The City Council actually voted to raise the starting salary for police officers to $57,000, but City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba was adamant that the salaries only be raised to $55,000, and the majority of the City Council backed down. The salary increase was also delayed from the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1 to September.
The City Council has been told repeatedly that one of the major impediments to hiring new police officers is that in Greensboro, unlike every competing law enforcement agency in the state, does not provide take-home cars for its patrol officers. As a result, on Nov. 18, 2021, the City Council voted to provide an additional 20 police cars each year for five years in order to provide the additional 100 police cars necessary for each patrol officer to have a take-home car. A year and half after that vote, on July 7, 2023, the first 10 of those additional police cars were actually provided to police officers.
I’m sorry big city, I got it wrong it was 74 not 73 boy you really have to be proud of that milestone in Greensboro. I’m so glad you’re the cheerleader for our city. You are a class act.
As usual and expected, I can only hope the liberal city council sleeps well at night plus the mojo of a city manager that this EDI council hired. Betting the same wasteful democrats will be elected again. Maybe if Johnson gets 2 mil/ year that will help lower the murder rate along with all the other pixie dust feel good programs which show no results. You can bet the GPD will continue to suck the hind tit on the boar. Keep voting the way you vote….maybe we can crack 100 murders in 2024.
Council has set up a “catch” for their re-election. They served an “extra year” during Covid so now all City Council elections will be in an “off year”, meaning no other elections will be held but theirs. This ensures even lower voter turnout than the miserable 12% of the last election. They knew what they were doing and they knew that by doing that they would always be re-elected. Maybe the Rhino Times will check with both the Board of Elections and the Legislature about that. Seems that a three year term is needed to get things back on track!
The Greensboro City Council elections have been off year for at least the past three decades. The 2021 election was held in 2022, but the next City Council election will be in 2025.
They need to start hiring felon’s. A lot of felon’s are rehabilitated and would like to help our communities. I guarantee those vacancies will be filled.
It’s not so much that officers in Greensboro do not have a take home vehicle; it’s more a lack of support from most of City Council and the Manager’s office. He’s too worried about having a car optional City by 2040. With the recent tragedy of the murder of Sgt. Dale Nix, some council members, but not all, along with the Mayor have been vocal about what a tragedy this is. It’s a shame that it took something so terrible and tragic for Council members and the Mayor to show such support. The police department has not had support in years. No one wants to work in that environment, especially in a profession as dangerous as law enforcement.
But it’s not true support now is it. Sgt. Nix’s passing is just a chance for them to shed tears on camera for the sympathy vote before going to their next social event. The entire council, but especially the mayor, live with an “any way the wind blows” mentality. Whenever the next police officer messes up somewhere in the country, and God forbid it be in Greensboro itself, the council will forget that they ever said that they support the police and turn their backs on them once again, just like they all did in 2020.
Let’s not be so foolish as to believe those crocodile tears are real or that the council and mayor really love our police.
Our City Council should be lauded for this new record.
I would be interested in seeing a breakdown of the homicides by type: Domestic/suicide/accidental/gang-related (drugs, alcohol, illegal firearms, etc). No one seems to want to address the issue of gang violence.
The 1st gang they need to eliminate is the City Council. You’re right, they constantly ignore the growing gang problem that democrat led cities seems to foster and grow so well. Liberalism is a disease of the mind.
We are the biggest city ️ in the metro and attract a lot of transient people. Take the officer that was killed recently killed inside Guilford County by three people from Winston. Three people killed earlier this year was killed by a man from southern VA and people from highpoint also come and reek havoc unless we close the boarders we have to deal with explosion in growth the best way we can more police won’t help
Greensboro is currently growing according to US Census figures at less than 1 percent a year. It’s hard to call that explosive growth.
That’s 2020! Three years ago we are currently the 4th hottest housing market for mid tier cities we are adding 8 people a day and have one of the hottest job markets in the country growth happens between the census sir!
Check the current US Census figures. I did.
Not sure if you meant “reek” or “wreak”, but I do agree the situation, especially with all the money thrown at Cure Violence, does indeed reek. The program stinks like fish on ice.
As for the “boarders” being closed… The invaders may be “boarders” but the vast majority are not paying rent to stay. The open borders is nothing more than an attempt to inflate the population in democratic run areas to keep the census numbers up so they don’t lose Congressional representation from all the people fleeing liberal cities.
As for the police, it is obvious that with the shrinking police force we have seen a concomitant rise in crime. Liberal prosecutors who plead felonies down to misdemeanors do the citizens no great service either. Those that commit violent felonies should actually be imprisoned; even if it doesn’t rehabilitate them, at the very least they are not out committing more crimes. Recidivism of violent offenders is all too often a foregone conclusion when they have lengthy records of arrests and convictions.
I meant the boarder of Guilford county I don’t care about your fake outrage about the southern boarder or your conspiracy theory!
You reek, and so do the boarders…
The “transient” people you speak of come to Greensboro because they know we are low on police and the DA doesn’t do crap.
Guilford County DA (Avery Crump) is the absolute worst. She has a pro-criminal, anti-law enforcement agenda. That definitely does not help the crime issue.
This City Manager has got to go! He has ignored City Council requests time and time again. The police officers was the greatest slap in the face to City Council and the citizens. Our City Manager is partially responsible for our crime rates. He won’t fund our police officers. How arrogant to go against what City Council requests, time and time again. When asked about the true costs of the leave collection changes both the Assistant City Manager and the City Manager responded that they did not know. Councilman Matheny has repeatedly asked our City Manager for detailed information and has not been provided that information. Our City Manager must go! Mayor Vaughan and other City Council members, he is your direct employee and he continually ignores you and slaps you in the face. All he does is ignore you and work to get his picture on LinkedIn, the American Association of Planning Website and do videos for APA about how racist the City of Greensboro citizens are! No respect for ANYONE!
If you stay here your house has doubled in value the county line is waiting!
So have my taxes, not to mention the rising crime especially the homicide numbers.
The socialists run the local govt. What their party wants is chaos, so the Big Brother can swoop in to take over completely. Manna from Heaven.
I can think of but two solutions:
Vote them out.
Stop sending them money.
Any suggestions as to how to implement either? Another idea?
When the mayor and chairman of county commissioners put crackheads ahead of taxpayers and law enforcement what do you expect.
The Communist News Network claims homicides Re down 10% in major cities across the US.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/us/homicide-crime-declines-cities-2023/index.html
There’s some really sketchy math by various officials quoted in the article. Interestingly enough both Greensboro & Portland (another socialist utopian cesspool) managed to have a marked increase in 2023. I wonder what the common denominator could be?
GPD lost about 65 officers in 2023 to attrition. (Retirement, resignation, getting fired.) The 2 academies that graduated in 2023 contained 13 (March) and 17 (September) recruits. That adds up to 30 new cops. Now I’m sure they hired a few officers who transferred from other agencies and might not sit in the academy, so let’s be nice and say they added 40 new cops in 2023. Looks like 40 new ones with 65 old ones leaving…. wait a minute, that’s still a net loss. How can this be?
Oh wait, I know. Maybe it’s because half-assed words of support and mediocre efforts to boost incentives, such as a take home car program with a 10-year implementation window, will do nothing to stem the tide of attrition since the officers on the street know that council’s support is as ephemeral as a fart in the wind. On top of that, the majority of citizens do not care enough about their own city to demand any sort of change.
On the bright side, at least all of the murderers can start hiding the dead bodies under big piles of uncollected leaves next to the homeless dudes sleeping in there. Meanwhile Chris will comment that it’s really no big deal because the volume of homicides, though almost double our average, really isn’t statistically significant. So you and I have nothing to worry about.
Look no further than the readership to change the leadership.