Maricopa County medical examiner offers ‘sobering fact' about shooting deaths
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
Posted 5/21/23
Deaths in Maricopa County caused by homicides and suicides grew last year, and gunshot wounds caused more deaths than traffic injuries, particularly among the young, according to a new report.
…
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Need to set up your free e-Newspaper all-access account? click here.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Register to comment
Click here create a free account for posting comments.
Note that free accounts do not include access to premium content on this site.
I am anchor
ANNUAL REPORT
Maricopa County medical examiner offers ‘sobering fact' about shooting deaths
Posted
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
Deaths in Maricopa County caused by homicides and suicides grew last year, and gunshot wounds caused more deaths than traffic injuries, particularly among the young, according to a new report.
The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner’s eighth annual report was released last week, summarizing death trends in several areas, including among the homeless, infants and children and those caused by the heat and drugs.
Rates for accidents and natural-death cases for the medical examiner decreased in 2022, while homicides and suicides increased.
According to the report, there were 438 homicides in 2022, the highest number since the office began putting the figure in its database in 1991.
Deaths caused by firearms were nearly eight per 100,000 people, a 19% increase from 2021.
Firearms also were responsible for the most suicides at nearly 11 per 100,000 people, an increase of 7 percent. Drug-related suicides rose 18 percent with just over two deaths per 100,000, officials found.
In a new section of the report, the office tracked firearm-related deaths and noted “the sobering fact that gunshot wounds cause more deaths in the county annually than traffic injuries, a trend that has been the case every year since 2015 apart from 2021,” the report stated.
In adolescent deaths, firearms are involved more often than traffic-related causes or drugs.
“In traffic-related fatalities, new graphs have been developed showing the prevalence of potentially intoxicating drugs in motor vehicle drivers, pedestrians, pedestrians experiencing homelessness and bicyclists,” officials said in the report.
“We hope that this helps inform interventions to reduce such deaths.”
Other items in the report:
In 2022, medical examiner cases included 732 individuals who were noted to be “experiencing homelessness,” a 42 percent increase from the previous year, and the ratio of accidental deaths was higher in the homeless population.
Drug-related death rates – “while still extremely high” dropped slightly in 2022. Fentanyl and methamphetamine remain the most prevalent drugs involved and while the fentanyl cases dropped “very slightly,” the number of methamphetamine-related deaths grew by nearly 4%.
