Tim Steller’s column: Downtown crime needs addressing, but I’ll be back

It was pretty empty at first but filled up by the dinner hour — an encouraging sight for those of us who really want downtown businesses, and downtown itself, to succeed.

Then I went back to the food hall Saturday afternoon because I’d left my hat there, and I was happily surprised to see a good flow of customers despite it being mid-afternoon in July.

That’s one of the reasons it broke my heart to hear of the mass shooting early Sunday morning, around bar-closing time, at the adjacent corner of Sixth Avenue and East Congress.

The biggest reason, of course, was that nine people were shot and countless more were terrified by the experience. But I’m especially sensitive to crimes that happen downtown, because I like the area and want the businesses and events downtown to succeed.

I want urban Tucson to thrive.

But I know that in the mind of the broader public in Tucson, where strip malls dominate the commercial scene, downtown is an area that always seems on probation. It’s never quite free of suspicion because bad crimes do occur down there. The hatchet murder of Jacob Couch in April 2025 was the last really notorious one. And they’re blamed on the area.

I’ve long thought that the fear of downtown is overblown. I’m there a lot, though admittedly not often around the midnight hour, the period when trouble too often breaks out. I walk everywhere, deliberately going to the sketchiest spots I can find to feel the vibe. It almost never feels risky to me.

But I know bad things do happen, especially late on weekend nights. It’s always disappointing to see the videos of fights outside bars or, more rarely, reports of gunfire that emerge after weekends.

For those of us who remember downtown in the 1990s to the early 2000s, the disappointment has come with a little asterisk. At least, we think, there are people downtown now and things going on.

But as downtown has revived and become a more active place, too many ruffians gather there on weekend nights, get a little sauced, and lose control. In truth, some downtown businesses have invited them in. When your primary business is selling alcohol late at night and you cater to a rougher crowd, fights will result.

But gunfire? There’s no acceptable level, downtown or elsewhere, and we need to find ways to tamp it as far down as possible. I hope that today, city officials are looking for new ways to stop it from breaking out.

Simply asking Tucson police to enforce the laws on the books could go a long way toward improving the sense of late-night security. Holding trouble spots accountable for their customers’ actions could also help.

All that said, in the USA of 2026, a shooting like this can happen anywhere people gather. They’ve happened in schools, malls, churches, sports games. Of course they’d also happen in a downtown entertainment district.

I’m thankful that as of this writing, nobody has died so far. My sympathies are with the nine victims who were struck, and thanks go to the police officers who responded and stopped the suspect by shooting him.

You won’t find me avoiding downtown, though. You can look for me here or there, at coffee shops, restaurants, walking the sidewalks.

It’s not just that I want businesses like the Gibson Food Hall to succeed. It’s important for a city of Tucson’s size to have a downtown space where lots of different people can gather, though it should be with minimal fear.