Shootings have dropped nearly 40% in the Austin community on the West Side, with both police and anti-violence groups saying their efforts are paying off in one of the most violent areas in Chicago.

As of the end of June, there had been 55 shootings in the Austin police district compared with 90 this time last year, a 39% decrease, according to department numbers.

The decline helped push shootings to a four-year low across the city, though the good news was overshadowed by a weekend that saw more than 50 people shot for the second time this year.

Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was asked about the weekend violence as he released the new crime numbers. He said people arrested with guns need to be held more accountable with tougher bonds and prosecutions — a point he has made repeatedly.

“Most people think these gun offenders make the decision to fire their gun at the moment when they are in that incident,” Johnson said. “That’s not when they make that decision. They make that decision when they leave home that morning and decide to take their gun with them because what they are saying is, ‘If I need to use this today, I am.’ You can’t pull the trigger if you don’t have the gun with you.”

The year began with sizable reductions in homicides and shootings from the year before, a 38% drop for homicides and a 19% decline in shootings by late March. But those percentages shrunk as the warmer weather finally hit. Through June, homicides were 7% lower than this time last year and shootings were down 11% while robberies, burglaries and car thefts were at 20-year lows.

The number of homicides so far this year in the Jefferson Park, Lincoln and Rogers Park patrol districts on the North and Northwest sides are the lowest since 1999, the department said.

“I am certainly not satisfied with where we are in terms of crime reductions, but we have to admit that there has been progress,” Johnson said at the news conference at police headquarters.

In the Austin district, homicides were down 30% over this time last year, from 27 to 19.

Neighborhoods in the district have struggled for years with poverty, gang conflicts and drug-dealing. Open-air drug markets are fed by their closeness to the Eisenhower Expressway — dubbed the “Heroin Highway” because of its easy access from the suburbs and downtown.

The district also is a regular focus of elite citywide police units that conduct investigations into drugs, gangs and guns. FBI agents and other federal law enforcement work on long-term cases there.

In 2017, Austin was among the first of the department’s 22 districts to use technology designed to help officers better predict where shootings may occur and respond more quickly to gunfire.

District supervisors analyze shooting data in real time through a computer program called HunchLab to quickly determine where to deploy patrol and tactical officers. This is integrated with gunshot detection technology called ShotSpotter, which tells officers in the field where gunfire is coming from. Crime maps and surveillance video footage from police cameras are displayed on widescreen TVs in Strategic Decision Support Centers.

Community groups also have been working to combat violence, including the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, which provides community outreach and services for victims of crimes and their families.

Teny Gross, the executive director of the group, said he was aware of the numbers for Austin but that there is still work that needs to be done. “You always live with a little pit in your stomach that things can erupt,” he said.

Gross said solutions are hard work and a matter of coordination and proper investments over the course of years.

“My hope is that one day we get to zero shootings in Austin,” he said. “It’s not just my hope, by the way, it’s the hope of the people who live here. You have to keep pushing the violence down. You have to keep intervening.”

Johnson gave a preview of another department initiative, “Gun Stat,” in which police officials will track the cases of people arrested for gun crimes, following their bonds and their trials.

The department says it confiscated 5,200 guns in the first half of this year, putting the department on track to pass the 10,000 mark by December.

“I think this will give us a better picture — a better idea — of how effective we’re doing in terms of holding people accountable,” Johnson said. “The people that should be blamed are the people pulling the triggers — that’s who’s causing the crime.”