TRIPLE SHOOTING | Covington police are searching for the person responsible for a triple shooting Wednesday night.
The shooting happened on North College near Long Avenue, between the now-vacant Rite Aid building and the Boys & Girls Club. The shooting occurred at 9:11 p.m.
Several dozen gunshots were heard across the city Wednesday night. Shots fired calls came in from North College, Douglas and Haynie streets.
Chief Buddy Lewis said a house at North College was struck multiple times. The victims’ injuries are not life-threatening. They have been taken to Baptist-Tipton for treatment.
The person of interest has not yet been identified. But is believed to have been shot in a weekend incident between Covington and Mason.
Lewis said casings from both a handgun and semi-automatic rifle have been found. This lead investigators to believe there were at least two people shooting.
[ Triple Shooting | Echo Day, The Leader, Covington, Tenn., February 20, 2019]
Crime in Covington
With a crime rate of 37 per one thousand residents, Covington has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 27. Within Tennessee, more than 93% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Covington.
Separately, it is always interesting and important to compare a city’s crime rate with those of similarly sized communities – a fair comparison as larger cities tend to have more crime. NeighborhoodScout has done just that. With a population of 8,616, Covington has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. Regardless of whether Covington does well or poorly compared to all other cities and towns in the US of all sizes, compared to places with a similar population, it fares badly. Few other communities of this size have a crime rate as high as Covington.
Now let us turn to take a look at how Covington does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Covington.
For Covington, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout’s analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Covington is one in 91.
Significantly, based on the number of murders reported by the FBI and the number of residents living in the city, NeighborhoodScout’s analysis shows that Covington experiences one of the higher murder rates in the nation when compared with cities and towns for all sizes of population, from the largest to the smallest.
In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Covington is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Covington, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 38, which is a rate of 26 per one thousand population.