EPPD SWAT assisting gang units; six murders in El Paso in September

The number of violent crimes like murder and robberies have increased in El Paso compared to this same time in 2015, police said.

In September 2016, there have been six murder cases. EPPD Detective Mike Baranyay told ABC-7 that’s the most he’s ever seen in a month in El Paso.

“With the increase in some of the violent crimes, we’ve actually recently activated certain areas of our SWAT team,” Baranyay said, “SWAT assists gang units, to either locate or execute high risk warrants, and to be out there in the field with these patrol officers and detectives.”

So far in 2016, El Paso has experienced 17 murders, a 23 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2015.

360 robberies have been reported so far this year, a 30 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2015.

Burglaries, more than a thousand in 2016, are up 21 percent compared to this point last year.

Doctor Edgar Zavala, an assistant professor of criminal justice at UTEP, said a lot of the homicides in El Paso traditionally “tend to be intimate partner homicides, so this is where a significant other kills another significant other.”

Baranyay said five of the six murders in September were not related to domestic violence when normally 80-percent of El Paso’s murders are in some way related to domestic violence.

“I would be more alarmed with the fact these are not domestic violence related murders,” Baranyay said, “the time span is alarming.”