Murders rise in some areas, drop in others
Charlotte NC Jan 2 2018
Murders are down in some of the nation’s most violent cities according to law enforcement but shootings and other crimes against persons are up.
New York City officials said that in 2017, detectives investigated 290 murders, down from 335 in 2016.
In fact, 2017 was a record-low for homicides in New York City, with NYPD logging lowest number in nearly 70 years according to officials with the New York City Police.
Chicago police says there was less gun violence in the city in 2017 compared to the year before, but the total number of homicides still topped the 600 mark for only the second time in more than a decade.
Statistics released by the police department on Monday show the number of homicides fell from 771 in 2016 to 650 in 2017. The number of shooting incidents dropped from 3,550 to 2,785 for the same period.
The department says the drop is in part due to an expansion of technology that enables police to pinpoint where shots have been fired and quickly dispatch officers to the crime scene.
Police say they’re optimistic that the planned expansion of such crime-fighting technology will help bring down the numbers even more in 2018.
Other cities also tout lower murder rates during 2017 while some like Baltimore Maryland which has a decreasing city population and Charlotte North Carolina which has an increasing daily population, both saw increases in their murder rate for 2017.
Baltimore set a new per-capita homicide record as gunmen killed for drugs, cash, payback – or no apparent reason at all.
A surge of homicides in the starkly divided city resulted in 343 killings in 2017, bringing the annual homicide rate to its highest ever – roughly 56 killings per 100,000 people. Baltimore, which has shrunk over decades, currently has about 615,000 inhabitants.
Charlotte, a city experiencing rapid growth with a population of 842,000, also saw an increase in violence and homicides ending the year with 89 murders, up from 67 the previous year.
Atlanta had seen an increase in murders for three consecutive years coming into 2017.but ended with just under 100, slightly less than in the previous three years.
Further south in New Orleans, they also reported a three-year low in murders ending 2017 with 158 homicides.
Gun violence, robberies and other crimes against a person saw increases in many cities.
Some common denominators in all of the murders have been drugs, gangs and domestic violence.
