Chicago's Murder Rate Up

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Aug 7, 2008 2:45PM

In today's "No Shit" story, Chicago's 2008 murder rate is up 18 percent compared to the first seven months of 2007, including a particularly bloody July that saw 62 people killed. From January to July this year, 291 people were murdered while the same time period in 2007 saw 246 murders. While the July tally seems high, it's still below the 66 murders from July 2006, though 2008's year-to-date tally is still higher than 2006's 266 murders.

Overall, Chicago is on pace to top 500 murders for the year, the highest since a particularly violent 600+ murders in 2003. The number of "aggravated batteries with a firearm" also increased over the same time period from 2007 with 1,153 being reported so far this year, 245 more than last year. Chicago Police Department Monique Bond claims that gang violence is to blame for the spike in violent crime.

"The department's been focusing on targeting gang hierarchies, which have been dismantled over an extended period of time. [That's] causing gangs to now operate in smaller crews that compete against each other for narcotic turf, which leads to deadly violence...Law enforcement is having to adapt to that and looking at different kinds of ways that are outside the traditional ways that we've been using to attack gang violence."

It was about a month ago that Police Superintendent Jody Weis was called before the City Council to answer for the increase in violence, especially after the outbreak of violence at this year's Taste of Chicago which resulted in a shake-up of emergency personnel by Mayor Daley. Whether refocusing Weis's efforts will pay off or not remains to be seen.

Photo by Jeff Cagle