I appreciate what you’re saying and I even more appreciate your honest attempt at talking through it, so thank you for that. I promise I understand that viewpoint 100%.

There’s a number of issues I took with the initial statement:

• you could just as easily argue it’s not a statistical anomaly until you have future years of data. The same way we cannot state it’s a trend is the exact same reason you cannot treat it as an anomaly.

• I say “you could just as easily argue…” as it’s a very general term with a lot of meanings depending on how broadly one applies it. “Anomalies are patterns in data that do not conform to a well defined notion of normal behavior” is one definition I found. Just because there is a trend upward over the next few years doesn’t actually mean it’s not an anomaly either over a much broader period. If the trend continues for 3 years then recedes, one could still say define that period as a statistical anomaly over a broader time frame.

• the framing of statistical anomaly was also used selectively as it applies to the city. How does the trend match up against the state, the country, with crime in those places, with drug use? A trend could easily already well be there. Even the time frame is selective. Again, the application was so general it renders it nearly meaningless.

• this culminates to my ultimate point that it was an incredibly crass and dismissive statement about murder in the state. If that exact same statement were made about an increase in hate crimes every one of you would loose your collective shit and I strongly suspect it would have never been said. The comment was not helpful and only seemingly accurate in the blandest definition.

Given this, what was the point of the statement? I have guesses but they’re beside the point. Ultimately it only serves to shut down conversation about what is driving the murders and treat them as statistics rather than understanding causes.