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Homicides drop 4 percent; see how many each N.J. county had

A county-by-county look at homicide trends in New Jersey.

Homicides in New Jersey declined by roughly four percent in 2016 over the prior year, according to an NJ Advance Media survey of county prosecutor's offices.

New Jersey county prosecutors reported 361 homicides last year compared to 375 in 2015, the NJ Advance Media tally showed. 

Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino pointed to the state's focus on combating violent crime and drug addiction, but added that causes of homicides vary.

"We must always be cognizant of the fact that the contributing circumstances for increases and decreases in crime are multi-faceted, and more must be done," Porrino said in a statement. "We will continue to aggressively crack down on violent crime and the drug trafficking trade, as well as to take steps to prevent addiction before it starts."

Some of the state's most historically violent urban centers saw declines last year, including in Newark and Irvington. Killings plunged from 14 in 2015 to four homicides last year in Irvington, the lowest number of homicides the city saw in at least four decades, according to police records.

Homicides plunge in Irvington after new policing plan

Irvington Mayor Tony Vauss, who was elected in 2014, said his administration has focused on lowering crime in the Essex County township of about about 55,000 residents. Lowering violent crime also allowed the town to work to attract new businesses.

"I can't bring a developer in here to build if it's not clean and it's not safe," Vauss told NJ Advance Media in an October interview. "Once you start to tackle those two important facets, everything else will fall into place."

To achieve the reductions, officials said the town's 157-member police force focused on using intelligence to deploy officers in crime hot spots, and formed specialized teams of investigators to target known violent criminals.

Approximately a third of the state's homicides occurred in Essex County, where the prosecutor's office reported 126 killings, down from 143 in 2015.

View 2016 New Jersey Homicides, by county in a full screen map

Newark logged 94 murders in 2016, compared to 106 in 2015, according to city police. Non-fatal shootings also dropped 22 percent from 329 in 2015 to 257 last year in the state's largest city. Mayor Ras Baraka and Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose have hired more officers after massive layoffs, and the city overhauled its police force under a public safety department early last year.

Ambrose also credited a contingent of state troopers will helping city police push down the violent crime. 

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray said policing strategies driven by intelligence likely helped to prevent some killings and credited the work of the prosecutor's office Homicide Task Force. Still, Murray said there was more work to be done.

"We are pleased that [the numbers] are lower," the prosecutor said in an interview. "We are not satisfied by any stretch of the imagination with having 126 homicides in the county, but we are going to do our level best in each case to bring some measure of justice to those situations, while trying to play our part in having a greater reduction this year."

The county's Homicide Task Force, which includes prosecutor's detectives and local police, has helped secure better evidence and convictions, Murray added. Last year also saw 79 killings outside, compared to 106 outdoor homicides in 2015.

"I think that directed, intelligence-led policing may be causing our police to be in more of the correct locations outside to therefore to suppress more of those perhaps impulsive acts of gun violence that make homicides," the prosecutor said.

The declines were not uniform in jurisdictions across the state. Burlington County saw a surge in deadly shootings, pushing its homicide total to 19 for 2016, more than three times as the six slayings the county logged in 2015.

Willingboro police Lt. Christopher Vetter told NJ Advance Media the Burlington County community of about 31,000 residents saw three shooting homicides in just over a month, and all remained unsolved.

"It just seems like this generation now settles their issues with guns," Vetter said.

Residents are often reluctant to speak with authorities and fear retaliation, he added.

"We're actively working to improve our relationship with the public," Vetter said. "A lot of times we try to investigate or talk about these issues and they're extremely worried about sharing with us."

In Camden, there were 44 homicides in 2016, higher than totals in 2015, 2014 and 2013.

"Camden has some unique struggles that other cities don't have," Camden County Prosecutor's Office Capt. William Townsend said in an interview late last year. The captain cited witness intimidation among roadblocks investigators face.

Camden homicide count climbs as number of other violent crimes decline

The Camden County Police Department metro division, formed in 2013 and responsible for policing the city, also faced a staffing shortage during the period from late March to late May, when nearly half of last year's murders occurred, according to Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli.

"We know that there is an imperative to continue to get illegal guns off our streets and focus on decreasing homicides," Cappelli said in December.

Officials in Union County have echoed concerns about a lack of cooperation from witnesses in solving killings.

"We have people who were at the scene, shot at, injured, who will not talk to police," Acting Union County Prosecutor Grace Park told a community forum held in response to an increase in homicides in Plainfield earlier this month. "My message to you is, if you want to help your community, you have to help police solve these serious, serious tragedies and bring justice to those victims."

The totals tallied by NJ Advance Media differ from the official State Police Uniform Crime Report, which tracks murder in line with federal guidelines. State Police reported 369 murders in 2015 and last year's statistics have not yet been verified against those guidelines, a state Attorney General's Office spokesman said.

The variation in totals stems partially with a difference between the definition of homicides and murders. Some counties include cases where police officers fatally shoot a suspect or other justifiable killings in homicide counts, which can inflate totals. Justifiable homicides, however, are not counted in the murder category under FBI crime reporting guidelines.

Greg Adomaitis, Rebecca Everett and Jessica Remo contributed reporting. 

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

 

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