City officials in Hartford are welcoming 2024 with some positive news: gun violence in the city is down.

Hartford experienced a sharp increase in shootings, including both homicides and nonfatal shootings, in 2020 and 2021. But the numbers decreased last year and are now showing a two-year decline.

Last year, there were 98 nonfatal shooting victims — less than half of the 211 Hartford saw in 2020. The number of shooting victims in Hartford declined by 28% last year compared to 2022, according to a report in the city’s mayoral transition binder.

“It’s down 46% from the height of the pandemic, which is a huge number,” said Lt. Aaron Boisvert, Hartford Police spokesman. “I wish there was some magic formula that I can explain why this is happening. But it’s hard to predict the future and what this means for this year.”

But while the number of nonfatal shooting victims last year was lower than any year since 2006, homicides still remain high overall. Last year, there were 28 homicides from gun violence in Hartford. While that’s a significant drop from 39 homicides in 2022, it remains higher than in 2019 when 23 people were killed by gun violence in the city, according to police.

“The difference between a homicide and a nonfatal shooting could be a millimeter,” said Boisvert. “Every shooting is an attempted homicide. Nobody is trying to just wound someone else. We have two of the best hospitals in the country here that perform miracles. That’s a big part of it.”

Hartford Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center both take patients with gunshot wounds.

In response to the rise in gun violence in 2020, the Hartford Police Department created the Non-fatal Shooting Response Team in 2021. When a shooting occurs, the SRT rapidly deploys detectives to crime scenes who use enhanced investigative training and techniques more often associated with homicide investigations.

Since then, the department has increased the number of cases it solves — or clearance rate — for nonfatal shootings, doubling the clearance rate from 2020 to 2021 and 2022, according to the HPD.

“We have had tremendous success with our SRT helping to solve shooting crimes quickly,” Boisvert said. “But they really don’t stop or deter shootings, they investigate them.”

While no single initiative can eliminate gun violence, police say there are several possible reasons for the decrease in shootings. One of them is an increased focus in the department on seizing illegal guns in the city.

From 2014 through 2020, the department averaged 244 illegal firearms seized per year, with a high of 272 in 2019. But In 2021, 341 illegal guns were taken off the streets and that increased to 367 in 2022.

Last year, the department removed a record 369 illegal firearms from the city’s streets, police said.

The city also employs a citywide camera system and ShotSpotter activation system that can detect gunshots with great accuracy.

“They both don’t deter gun violence, since we had both in the city in 2020,” Boisvert said. “But before we had ShotSpotter, the only time we knew there were gunshots was when we had residents call us. We would have to go out there and canvass neighborhoods to find shell casings. Now we’re finding them almost right away.”

The Hartford Police Department analyzed 419 shootings between 2019 and 2023 and found that when shooting cases are captured on video, there is a 123% increase in the proportion of cases solved, compared to those cases without video, according to the report.

“The camera system is a great tool, but it doesn’t cover every intersection,” Boisvert said. “It only covers the main intersections in the city. But it definitely helps. At the end of the day our detectives are still going out there and doing a phenomenal job. Often our detectives are getting private video that can show more than our system.”

The department now offers residents and business owners the opportunity to connect their own private cameras to the city’s camera system. In addition, the city has distributed 70 free Ring cameras that are connected to the city’s network.

“These are all great tools,” Boisvert said. “They don’t solve everything and can’t account for deterring shootings. But they are more tools in our belt.”