TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) – Hotheads and guns can make the streets a dangerous place. KGUN9 had the opportunity to speak with the TPD officer who coordinates the department’s response to violent crime to learn more about what TPD does to help keep us safe.

In recent months we have seen young people well armed with weapons, but not sensibly; like the car full of gunmen who shot at a party on 5th Street and left a young woman dead.

From the group that fired over a hundred bullets at a hookah lounge in Speedway.

“Historically, incidents may have resolved themselves with a fistfight, but now they are leading to incidents where there is gun violence.”

Lt. Aaron Wine says that’s happening across the country. He heads the Tucson Police Violent Crimes section and says that with just over fifty homicides so far this year, the homicide rate is very similar to last year.

TPD Statistics Site shows homicides between 37 and 55 over the past six years, except for an increase to 72 in the peak year of the pandemic, 2021.

This year’s homicides show a distribution throughout Tucson, demonstrating Lt. Wine’s point that no place is immune from violent crime.

Data is crucial ammunition for Tucson police. Analysts find patterns in which people, places, guns and drugs add to problems.

“There is a crime happening in a park. The park may not be at the source problem. The source problem may be an apartment complex on the same street, in close proximity that has a lot of links to that crime, and it’s about identifying that network to reduce that crime in that area.”

Lt. Wine says police can break up these networks of problems with arrests, but also with other city resources, such as parks and youth outreach programs.

And he says when homicides occur, Tucson police have a strong track record of solving those crimes. He says most cities solve about half of their homicides, but Tucson solves about 80 percent.