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January on track to be the deadliest in BR since record-keeping began
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BATON ROUGE- East Baton Rouge Parish is on track to have the deadliest January on record in 2021 with 10 days left to go this month.
The deadly January comes after a violent 2020 where Baton Rouge broke records for the most murders ever. As of January 21, the new year was not off to a good start; Already, there have been 12 homicides in the parish as of Thursday. The only other time there were this many homicides was in January of 2013. There were 12 for the entire month in 2013, making this month tied with the deadliest.
"This is very alarming," East Baton Rouge Coroner Dr. Beau Clark said. "We are just coming off the year 2020 where EBR Parish saw an overwhelming number of deaths, one of those being homicides. And here we are in the first 21 days of January of 2021, and we've already had 12 homicides to date this month."
The coroner tracks all homicides, including those that are justified. The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office only tracks murders. To date, the DA's office said Baton Rouge is matching the 2013 number of 10 murders, with a few days to go until the end of January. The murders have run the gamut from people shot and killed in the street to a 13-year-old found dead five days ago on Beechwood.
"We are going to continue our directive patrol efforts, areas where we are seeing increased activities and areas of concern," Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said.
Paul said they are working hard right now to combat some of the high-crime areas.
"We have an operation right now with our federal partners that we are in the beginning stages to help us identify and arrest some of those individuals involved in violent crime with those involved in group and gang violence," Paul said.
The murder of a 25-year-old man Thursday was the city's latest. He was gunned down in the 3900 block of Ozark Street. Baton Rouge Police have not identified any suspects or motives in that case.
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