Interactive map: 109 people killed, 608 more shot in Saginaw since 2008 - The Saginaw News - MLive.com

SAGINAW, MI — Saginaw has ranked in the top five of dangerous cities, per capita, for more than a decade, based on FBI statistics, but where is the violence happening?

Now you can picture it.

The Saginaw News pored over shooting reports from 2008 to present, plotting the crimes on a city map to reveal in which neighborhoods people have been hit by bullets the most. The resulting interactive map shows Saginaw's most dangerous neighborhoods, based on the numbers of shootings and homicides over a nearly six-year period. 

The analysis showed that Saginaw's most dangerous neighborhood over those five years was the 15-block area between Ruckle and Webber, east of Bagley and west of East Genesee. The streets include Harold and Ray, giving the neighborhood the nickname "H-and-R Block."

Saginaw Police Department detectives logged 109 homicide investigations from 2008 to Oct. 3, 2013. Of those killings, 92 victims were male and 17 were female. About four out of five victims were male.

There were 608 non-fatal shootings from 2008 to Oct. 3, 2013, according to the Saginaw Police Department.

• 2013, to date: 24 homicides, 61 nonfatal shootings, through Oct. 3, 2013
  
• 2012: 30 homicides, 117 non-fatal shootings
• 2011: 12 homicides, 100 non-fatal shootings
• 2010: 8 homicides, 72 non-fatal shootings
• 2009: 12 homicides, 106 non-fatal shootings
• 2008: 23 homicides, 152 non-fatal shootings

The total includes at least two shootings that happened outside city limits and the Saginaw Police Department is investigating, as well as 10 unknown location shootings since 2008.

Much of the violence is gang-related, police say.

There are gangs in Saginaw in a loose sense, said Saginaw Police Department Chief Brian Lipe, causing "probably the majority" of the city's violent crime. Lipe noted they're not like the "drug gangs" that the city had in the 1990s.

"They're just neighborhood friends who grew up together, and they're just living that life of violence," Lipe said.

"It's not your typical gang that deals dope and the goals is to make money. They're a group of friends that formed a gang and they stick up for each other."

View the interactive map below of shootings and homicides from 2008 through Oct. 3, 2013. Use the +/- bar or double click to zoom in on the map. 

Red markers represent non-fatal shootings and larger red markers with a black dot represent the location of homicides.