Residents may voice their concerns regarding how extreme rates of violent crime are causing residents to fear going about their daily lives by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.

COLUMBUS, Ga. — “Later is one of the most abused drugs on the planet.” — Dr. Henry Cloud. 

Violent crime, shootings, and unnecessary death continue to ravage the Fountain City as city officials finally begin to realize that our city’s crime epidemic requires their full attention. 

However, their actions may need to be expedited before it’s too late, as our city is now on-track to experience a record-setting 259 people shot and 70 homicides this year, based on current projections.

Note: The following text uses mathematics to illustrate the grizzly reality of human beings being shot and killed at staggering rates in our own city. In no way, shape, or form should the objectivity of the numbers involved nor the language required to articulate these abhorrent realities be misunderstood as a lack of care or compassion for the lives we are writing about. This stuff is very real, and we need you to understand that we don’t take it lightly. We do it to show you the truth so that you as the reader may come to better understand and appreciate the harsh reality of our city’s gruesome crime rates. 

YEAR-TO-DATE

The data we’ll be using in this article is from the first 135 days of the year, from January 1 through May 15, 2023.

So far this year, no less than 85 people have been shot in Columbus. 

During the same time frame, there have been a total of 23 recorded homicides. 

A LINEAR PROJECTION 

By dividing the total of 85 people shot by the 135 days over which the shootings occurred, we can derive a rate of 0.63 people shot per day.

 By multiplying that rate of 0.63 people shot per day by all 365 days of the year, we arrive at a linear projection of 230 people shot for the entire year.

Following the same formula above for the 23 homicides we’ve already suffered yields a rate of 0.17 homicides per day, which becomes a linear-projected rate of 62 homicides per year for 2023. 

However, that annual rate only accounts for a steady rate of shootings throughout the course of the entire year, which of course isn’t what actually happens in the real world.

THE NON-LINEAR ADJUSTMENT

As weather warms, violence — particularly shootings — increases. 

Based on a world-renowned study published by Hemenway and Reeping in 2020, we know that there is — for practical purposes — between a 34% and 42% increase in shootings for every 10-degree (Celsius) increase in outdoor temperature in a given area. In other words: when the weather warms up, more shootings occur at an increased rate of about 30% or so. 

For the sake of simplicity and even math, we’ll be using an estimated 30% increase in shootings for our purposes here in this article, since we’d be here all day if we were to actually plot the weather patterns of the area for the last fifty years to derive an exactly-precise answer. 

We think it’s a safe bet that, for practical purposes, our readers would agree that the weather in Columbus has just about two seasons: not hot, and really hot. Those really hot months tend to take place between May and September, which also happens to match the five-month period between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

So now we know that for five months of the year, shootings can be expected to occur at a rate 30% greater than the rest of the year.

THE FORMULA FOR ADJUSTMENT

The math can actually be fairly intuitive.

Since an annual rate divided by 12 gives us “x” shootings per month, then tacking an additional 30% onto five of those months yields a total of 13.5x shootings per year. 

It’s just the original 12x plus the additional 0.3x for five of the months:

12x + (0.3x * 5 months)  = 13.5x

APPLYING THE ADJUSTMENT: TOTAL PROJECTED SHOOTINGS

Given the formula above, we know that multiplying the linear-projected monthly rate by 13.5 will yield the far more accurately-adjusted non-linear rate, which now accounts for the 30% increase in shootings for five months of the year. 

Since we know our original linear rate  projects 230 people shot in Columbus this year, we can divide that by 12 months to get a monthly rate of 19.16 people shot per month. 

Multiplying that monthly rate of 19.16 people shot by the adjustment coefficient of 13.5 yields a far more accurate — and absolutely grizzly — reality that 259 people will likely be shot in Columbus this year.

That’s 259 human beings. 

Given the astonishing 196 people shot last year in Columbus during 2022, the current projection of 259 people shot in 2023 is a staggering 32% increase from last year.

That’s an almost unbelievable — but very real — increase of a solid one third, given the current rate of crime that’s already occurred year-to-date. 

APPLYING THE ADJUSTMENT: TOTAL PROJECTED HOMICIDES

Following the same formula of adjustment for the linear-projected rate of 62 total homicides, we divide that number by 12 months and get a monthly rate of 5.166 people killed per month. Multiplying that number by our adjustment coefficient of 13.5 to account for the warmer months yields a non-linear and far more accurate projection of an expected 70 total homicides for this year in Columbus for 2023.

That’s 70 human beings.

Given our population of 205,617 people, that’s a rate of 34 per hundred-thousand residents — which is deadlier than many third-world countries. 

THE BOTTOM LINE

These numbers speak for themselves.

They do not lie.

They do not care about race.

They do not care about agendas.

They simply just “are.”

If our city officials wish to change those numbers — if they wish to prevent our city from reaching a point of no return — then they ought to be willing to place their own vanity aside and start waging war against it.

Loudly.

Overtly.

And they’d better start now. Right now. 

We won’t get a second chance. 

Residents may voice their concerns regarding how extreme rates of violent crime are causing residents to fear going about their daily lives by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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