Miami goes 7-plus weeks without a murder

FILE - Miami residents applaud and make noise from their balconies as a way to show solidarity for health care workers and first responders. The gratitude may extend to one another, too. The city just went seven straight weeks without a single homicide, for the first time in 64 years that has happened.(Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

Miami’s vice seems to be on lockdown.

For 55 days this year – from Feb. 17 to April 12 – the city of Miami had zero murders, a first since 1957.

To be sure, the seven-week, three-day hiatus started a few weeks before measures were taken on March 12 to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Miami Herald reported, and ended while the restrictions were still in effect.

Nonetheless, there has been only one murder since then in the city, the Miami Herald said.

“It started in mid-February, well before anyone was locked down,” Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina, himself recovering from a case of COVID-19, told the Miami Herald. “Why? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m just grateful it continues to go down the way it has.”

The city also logged another record: zero homicides during a six-week period for the first time since 1960, a police spokesman told CBS News.

“We can say that it’s due to our police high visibility, attributed with the pandemic and the Stay At Home order,” a Miami Police Department spokesperson told CBS News.

In addition to the 1957 record, the city went six weeks and five days without a homicide in 1960, CBS News said. The Miami Herald noted that crime had been trending downward even before the pandemic hit.

“Right now we can’t really tell if it’s a continuation of the trend or the pandemic,” Miami Deputy Police Chief Ron Papier told The Herald. “We had a great start to the year. Certainly there’s a correlation to the pandemic, but we can’t say for sure just how much.”