Palm Beach County recorded its second-highest number of homicide deaths in the past decade during2021, totaling 109for the year, Palm Beach County Medical Examiner and law-enforcement records show.
It was the highest count since 2015, when there were 111 homicides, and it marked the fourth time in the past five years that the county —home to 1.5 million people — has reached 100 or more, according to medical examiner records. The county finished just shy of 100 in 2020, reaching 99 homicides.
The Palm Beach Post has tracked homicides in Palm Beach County in an online database since 2009. Its findings for 2021 include:
- The victims were predominantly male, accounting for 89 deaths.
- Guns caused the most deaths. In all,88 people wereshot, two more than in 2020.
- Black victims accounted for 70 homicide deaths.
- West Palm Beach had 22homicides, the most of any municipality.
- July was the year's deadliest month with 17 homicides recorded.
- At least eight victimswere juveniles, including two toddlers under the age of 2.
- The identities of nearly half of the victims remain undisclosed. Police in most cases citeda 2018 state constitutional amendment that lets crime victims or their families invoke a right to privacy.
Bee Love Slater:Investigators make arrest in 2019 death of Bee Love Slater; transgender woman found dead in car
YouTube trail:Ryan Rogers homicide: YouTube channel traces travels, thoughts of man facing murder charge
Appeals court ruling:Appeals court throws out conviction in two 2015 Greenacres homicides, saying Miranda rights violated
The increase in homicides during 2021 occurred despite having an uncharacteristically low number of cases to start the year. No homicide deaths were recorded in January, and the first two did not occur until the weekend ofValentine’s Day.
On Feb. 13, 22-year-old Allaysia McDonald became the year's first homicide victim. She was fatally shot onBlue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach.Hours later, Joseph Brown died early onValentine’s Day morning after he was shot while riding his bicycle on Avenue E in the city.
The final homicide of 2021 happened Dec. 28 in West Palm Beach, when a 50-year-old man whom police have not identified was shot and killed outside a home near Dreher Park.
Four shootings involved more than one victim
There were no mass-shooting events — ones involving four or more deaths — in Palm Beach County during 2021, but four shootingsresulted in two homicides apiece.
- On May 16, two men died and a third was seriously wounded in a shooting on Southwest Sixth Street in Belle Glade.
- On June 10, a 69-year-old woman and her 1-year-old grandson were shot and killed at the Publix Super Market in Royal Palm Beachby a gunman whom authorities say took his own life moments later. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said the gunman, 55-year-old Timothy J. Wall, had made random threats on social media prior to the shootings.Wall had noconnection to the grandmother and child, whose names were not disclosed because their family invoked their right to privacy.
- On Aug. 7, two men were killed in a shooting on Northwest 11th Avenue in east Boynton Beach. Theirfamilies also invoked their rights to privacy, but one of the men was later publicly identified as Randy Smith, the father of a football player at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach.
- On Dec. 10, two men were killed in a shooting outside a home on 52nd Street in West Palm Beach. Police said 29-year-old Tryrell McCallum and an unnamed 24-year-old man were involved in a dispute over money prior before both men being killed by gunfire.
More:Publix shooting: Royal Palm Beach residents say deaths shake their faith that they are safe
West Palm Beach police: Drug trade fueled several fatal shootings
McCallum and the 24-year-old manwere among five people killed in West Palm Beach in December, pushing the city's homicide total to 22 for the year, its most since the 28 homicides in 2018.
“The spike at the end of the year was kind of unique because one of the subjects shot a 16-year-old girl and it wasn’t his intended target, “ said Deputy Police Chief Rick Morris, referring to a shooting at 17th Street and Spruce Avenue. “That was something that really, we don’t have any control of. That’s a situation where aguy shoots in a crowd and hits an innocent bystander. “
Morris said many of the city’s homicides have been related to narcotics and the department has focused on increasing its drug-enforcement efforts. He noted that the city finished below 20 homicides during each of the previous two years.
“We’ve stepped up our narcotics enforcement,” Morris said. “That’s what’s caused the 29 percent decrease in three years. We’re not happy, obviously, with one homicide. We’re taking progressive action to make those numbers go down in 2022.
"The problem we’re having is we’ve got to be realists. The drug trade is just booming.”
'It’s a big differencelosing anyone to gun violence. … It’s a different type of pain.'
Community activist Angela Williams said this week she was planning to attend a funeral for one of the victims, the 462ndsince she founded the Mothers Against Murderers Association after the murder of her nephew Torrey Manuel in 2003.
Williams described gun violence in the community as being like "cancer" with no cure at the moment.
Mothers Against Murders Association: 'Love me through it': These 430 moms grieve, rise and fight gun violence
"The urgency is now to try to stop it," she said."I get those phone callsthat nobody wants to. What do you say to a mother whose child has been murdered? It’s a big differencelosing anyone to gun violence. … It’s a different type of pain."
One of the county's youngest shootingvictims, 7-year-old Dexter FergussonJr., died April 14 when an unidentifiedgunman fired shots through the first-floor window of a Riviera Beach apartment where the child and his family were sleeping.The child's mother,Addiscia Ball, was also shot, but survived her injuries.
“We have a kid who would have been a future governor, future president, future doctor, lawyer, schoolteacher or news journalist who is not here today,” Riviera Beach police chief Nathan Osgood said at a news conference held hours after the shooting.
As of Jan. 5, police hadnot arrested anyone in the child's death.
The county's homicide total also includes the deaths of two men who were killed in encounters in with law-enforcement.
- Boynton Beach police shot and killed Christian Castro, 27, on May 11 after responding to a domestic disturbance call in the Via Lago apartments along Congress Avenue. Investigators said Castro threatened officers while armed with a knife and a hammer.
- In October, West Palm Beach police shot and killed Allan Lorenzo Robbduring an encounter on the 800 block of Sunset Road. Investigators saidRobb was armed with a knife as police were attempting to arrest him on a grand theft auto charge.
The two agencies submitted the shootings to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office for review.
The medical examiner includes homicides that may be considered legally justified in its official total.
jwhigham@pbpost.com
@JuliusWhigham
