He saw heads shaking; there were no verbal responses.
“Okay, let’s talk about who’s involved in these homicides,” he then said. “Of those murdered, nearly ninety percent are male, sixty percent of that aged eighteen to thirty-four, seventy-five percent if you look at eighteen to forty-four. And of all those killed, seventy-five percent are African-American.
“The department’s Twenty-second District—North Philly, Broad Street to the Schuylkill River, headquartered at Seventeenth and Montgomery—gets the dubious honor of handling the most murders citywide, one in ten. But the Twenty-fourth and -fi
fth and the Twelfth and Thirty-fifth and -ninth are right behind it.”
Andy Radcliff said, “That’s pretty much anywhere but Center City.”
“That’s correct. But Center City certainly isn’t immune. Now, seventy-five-point-eight percent of homicides happen outside. No day is really any better or worse than another, although Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights edge highest.”
“Why not Friday?” a voice called out.
Payne shrugged.
“There’s really not a lot of difference. Friday rates eleven percent versus sixteen percent for each Saturday, Sunday, Monday. A third of those murders clock in—or clock out, as the case may be—between twenty-hundred and twenty-four-hundred hours. About one in four are murdered after that, twenty-four-hundred to oh-four-hundred.”
“Midnight, the witching hour,” Andy Radcliffe said. “Small wonder the Homicide guys on the Last Out shift are the busiest.”
“And why they don’t get much sleep,” Payne said, “considering they chase the leads night and day until they catch them or the trail goes cold. As for when the fewest murders occur, it’s the period from oh-eight-hundred to twelve-hundred.”
“Late morning. They must be sleeping in then,” a female who looked to have Irish traits said.
There were chuckles in the group.
“That,” Kuba said in a stage whisper, “or getting cozy with their bitches.”
That triggered loud laughter.
Payne shook his head, but he grinned and then went on: “Almost half are categorized as the result of an argument. A distant second, around ten to twelve percent, are listed as ‘Drugs’ and about the same number are marked ‘Unknown.’”
“Wouldn’t there be a lot of crossover there?” the tall, thoughtful black male said. “I mean, a lot of those arguments have to be drug-related.”
Payne nodded. “No doubt. There could’ve been drugs involved earlier, then a later argument triggered the killing. Fighting over territory is a prime example.” He paused, then went on: “And ‘triggered’ is somewhat appropriate, as the cause of death by far is gunshots. More than eighty percent. Knives come in at just shy of ten percent. After that it’s blunt force trauma and strangling. Anyone want to take a stab, so to speak, at when those numbers change dramatically?”
He glanced around the group, then his eyes fell on Andy Radcliffe.
“I’ve already read the report . . .” Andy said.
“Then you won’t be taking a stab.”
Andy nodded. “Okay, when it’s domestic murder cases. Knife and gun use are essentially equal.”
“Right. There were just over a hundred domestic-related murders over the last five years, and a knife or other sharp blade—scissors, say, or a cardboard box cutter—was used as often as a firearm. Interestingly, the numbers of male and female victims of domestic murders were also about equal.”
“Equal?” Kuba parroted, his tone incredulous. “You said the other homicide figures showed some eighty percent of the victims were male. And here women committed half of the killings?”
“‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,’” Payne recited, making dramatic stage-actor sweeps with his arms, “‘Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’ From Act Three, Scene Eight of ol’ Billy Congreve’s seventeenth-century play The Mourning Bride.”
“How do you remember stuff like that so quick and easy?” Andy Radcliffe said, smiling.
“Andy, I figure if that was written some three hundred years ago, and it still makes sense, there must be something to it,” Payne said. “You might wish to write this down: One should strive to remember all things relevant that could see one’s . . . posterior . . . kicked. Including, as this particular stat bears out, a furious wife, girlfriend . . .”
“Or girlfriends,” Kuba said. “Lots of baby mamas out there getting angry when their man wanders off with another baby mama.”
There were chuckles.
“Okay,” Payne said, “let’s wind this up. Eight out of ten murder victims had at least one prior arrest. Twenty percent, amazingly, had at least eleven priors, the vast majority being robbery, followed by murder.”