Officials: Omaha gun violence an epidemic

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BY JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star

OMAHA — No one denies Omaha is the gun violence capital of Nebraska.

“Omaha is a shooting gallery,” Omaha City Councilman Jim Suttle said at a hearing Friday on what to do about the problem.

Bottom line, he said, it is easier to get a gun on the street than it is to get a job.

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Sen. Ernie Chambers (LJS file)

Sen. Ernie Chambers (LJS file)

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee heard about the problem and potential solutions from politicians, community organizers, law enforcement, medical leaders and academicians at its interim hearing in Omaha.

The problems have been going on for a while, Suttle said, and it’s time to look for a more holistic solution than just burying the dead and locking up the shooters.

One proposed solution?  A program making headway in Chicago and Baltimore and other communities. It’s called CeaseFire, which uses a public health approach to reducing violence, using trained street violence “interrupters” and outreach staff, public education campaigns and community mobilization.

Judiciary Chairman Brad Ashford and others have been talking seriously about whether it would work in Omaha.

The program puts workers, many who are former gang members and ex-offenders, in the hot spots of gun violence to help prevent more violence.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said the answer lies in jobs and financial help from some of the people in the city with deep pockets — really, really deep pockets, who have access to millions, and sometimes billions of dollars.

Sen. Dwite Pedersen of Elkhorn agreed.

“The greatest therapist I’ve ever found is J-O-B,” Pedersen said, referring to offenders with whom he has worked in jails and prisons.

While Omaha was the focus of the hearing, the rest of the state is not immune from gun violence.

But even in Lincoln, just 45 miles down the road, the problem of shootings and killings is nowhere near what it is in the state’s largest city.

Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady, who came to the hearing to represent the state’s second largest city, said Lincoln probably has a higher violent crime rate than Omaha.

(FBI Crime Reports showed Lincoln had 411.2 aggravated assaults per 100,000 population in 2006; Omaha had 344.8.)

But Lincoln has fewer homicides and robberies.

Lincoln hasn’t done anything more or less than Omaha to address the issue, he said.

“I’m at a bit of a loss to explain the difference,” he said. “I think Omaha is similar to Lincoln in a lot more ways than the cities are different.”

Five people have been shot in Lincoln this year in violent crimes. One of them died. Last year, Lincoln had eight shootings, none fatal.

It would be worth it to study why Lincoln has a lower rate of gun violence, he said. There is certainly no difference in people having access to guns.

“Instead of trying to fix failure, study success,” he said.

Casady said there are areas of Lincoln where demographics are comparable, but crime rates are vastly different.

Northwest Lincoln’s Arnold Heights neighborhood, for example, and the Capitol South area, have income, race and other demographics that correlate.

But Arnold Heights has very low crime compared to Capitol South.

The difference, he said, is that Arnold Heights is less dense and has more green space, is more remote and is experiencing new development. It has more places to play, more people spending time in their neighborhood, fewer transients.

One of the differences he sees in Omaha and Lincoln is Omaha’s more concentrated disadvantage, particularly in north Omaha.

In his testimony, Casady said guns used in crimes are either stolen, taken from a parent’s closet or legitimately purchased.

They are not being transported into the cities as contraband or “sold under the table in some dark alley.

“That’s a misperception. That’s not what I see,” he said.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.