The impact of COVID-19 on the spatial distribution of shooting violence in Buffalo, NY

Objectives: This paper examines the extent to which hotspots of shooting violence changed following the emergence of COVID-19.

Methods: This analysis uses Andresen's Spatial Point Pattern test on 1500 by 1500 foot grid cells, correcting for multiple comparisons, on a 10-year sample of geocoded shooting data from Buffalo New York.

Results: This work finds zero micro-grid cells are not statistically different from pre to post COVID stay at home orders and instead that the observed rise in shootings in the sample appears to be a consistent proportional increase across the city.

Conclusions: These findings provide law enforcement with useful information about how to respond to the recent rise in shooting violence, but additional work is needed to better understand what, among a number of competing theories, is driving the increase.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-021-09497-4.