Using information from data.hartford.gov, one can see — without the dramatic music or insensitive teasers on social media — what has been happening in Hartford from April 15-May 15, 2015. This time period is just before the local mainstream media’s non-stop coverage of recent violence began.
Both maps use the same datasets. The first simply shows reported incidents; assaults are marked in purple, while confirmed gun shots are marked in red.
The map below uses the same data, but shows the incidents appearing in chronological order. These maps show reported incidents, but do not necessarily tell anything about injury, severity of injury, or motive. There is a delay of several days between reported incidents and the information making its way into the database, which even then, is said to be only an approximation as sometimes more details are revealed at a later date.
Whenever the news trucks show up for soundbites from residents and others by the crime scene, the snippets tend to take on one of two clichéd statements: (1) This type of crime never happens here (2) This type of crime is constantly happening here. Having information lets people see, minus the emotionally-charged rhetoric, what actually happens where and when.