Once a ‘murder capital,’ East Palo Alto celebrates a year without killings

For decades, East Palo Alto experienced more than its share of homicides – sobering statistics that once gained it notoriety as “America’s murder capital.”

Today, however, the small Peninsula city with a population of 30,000 boasts a new distinction: In 2023, for the first time in its 40-year history, it had zero homicides for the year.

“Together, we celebrate a momentous milestone in 2023: the East Palo Alto community, once marked by adversity, has triumphed with zero murders this past year,” the city’s Police Chief, Jeff Liu, trumpeted in a statement this week.

For Mayor Antonio Lopez, the 29-year-old city leader who was born and raised in East Palo Alto, it was an “emotional” moment – something he never imagined witnessing in his lifetime.

“You know, I’ve seen friends get caught up in gangs–folks who, if they would have lived in another zip code, might have had another opportunity, another chance to better themselves,” said Lopez, who was elected to the city council in 2020 and became mayor in December 2023

“For me, being in leadership, I understand that we set the stage for our young children, our families to feel safe. For me, as mayor, to usher in the new year with zero homicides — never in my wildest dreams did I think East Palo Alto would achieve this” within this time frame.

In 1992, East Palo Alto, with a population of 24,000 at the time, recorded the highest number of homicides per capita among all cities in the United States, totaling 42 – earning them the controversial “murder capital”  label that year.

Lopez attributes the stunning transformation to strong cooperation between the community – which now has about 30,000 residents – the local government and the police force.

“It’s a testament to the power of community organizing, also the investment that we made on the council level, myself and others, giving authority to the city police to make sure that salaries of our officers are on par with the rest of the country,” Lopez said.

Liu agreed, telling the Mercury News that increased funding for the police force played a key role in helping the homicide rate drop to zero. More funding enabled the East Palo Alto police to provide a 15% raise over a two-year span – 10% in 2023 and 5% this year – along with a $30,000 hiring bonus.

“I want to put context to folks that we were only paying about 80% of the average salary for a county officer,” Liu said. “In other words, we were already defunded de facto. We had significant vacancy turnover and serious vacancies in the police department, to the point where we only had maybe three patrol cars on the beat every night for a city of 30,000 people. I mean, that’s one officer for every 10,000 [people].”

Since then, Liu said East Palo Alto police was able to hire an additional 12 officers and “retain key personnel who were actively leaving.”

Aside from more funding, Liu said the city also gradually shifted its mindset from focusing on the number of arrests to addressing the root causes of crimes.

“Because the goal is to have a safe community, not necessarily arrest people,” Liu said.

“In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to arrest anybody, because we can give people other options–healthy options and productive options–rather than catching them when they choose [the wrong] path. It’s a bad option,” he added.

Efforts to build trust within the community – which tended to be fearful and distrustful of the police department – eventually paid off, and achieving zero homicides in 2023 is a testament to that, Liu said.

“If you don’t have the community’s trust, you can’t be effective as a police department,” the police chief said.

For Pastor Paul Bains, a faith leader and longtime resident of East Palo Alto, the people in the community are hopeful they can keep the number of killings at zero moving forward.

Bains runs Project WeHOPE, a nonprofit supporting homeless and at-risk adults in the region. He stressed that it’s not a single person who helped achieve this landmark, but the entire community.

“It doesn’t stop here,” Bains said. “We said it has to be a sustainable process and we continually meet. So we try to jump on stuff before it even happens… If we know that there’s something popping off, then we’re communicating with the police or we’re handling ourselves as leaders.”

Lopez said not nly does he believe the city can continue the streak of no murders, but he’s optimistic East Palo Alto will one day become a destination city in the Bay Area.

“[We are] poised to make a new downtown. The city is turning a new leaf. And I think it’s a perfect moment for folks from all walks of life,” Lopez said.

“You have a small minority community that, in spite of all its challenges, has been able to rise up to the occasion, shake the ashes of its past,” he said. “ And the fact that there’s so much excitement and development that’s happening in our commercial district, I really think we should watch what we’re doing in the city. We’re going to continue to make history in a positive way.”