Chicago Police Department Looks On Bright Side As 2012 Murder Rate Passes 400
By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 2, 2012 7:30PM
Chicago’s 2012 murder rate reached 400 last Friday. The murder rate stood at 406 at the end of September with the shooting death of Jose Escobar. The 25-year-old was murdered outside Johnny O’s, a hot dog stand at 35th and Morgan in Bridgeport.
According to numbers compiled by RedEye’s Tracy Swartz, it’s the fastest the city has reached that mark in 10 years. Chicago’s murder rate is up 25 percent over this same time frame last year, spurred in large part to a 66 percent increase in the murder rate during the first three months of the year. But what Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and the Chicago Police Department want to focus on is the recent drop in murders and the decline in other major crimes.
Police districts like Englewood on the South side and Harrison on the West side have seen drops in their murder rates this year in part to the “gang audit” strategy implemented by McCarthy. But those numbers have been offset, and then some, by double digit spikes in the murder rate in other districts such as Grand Crossing on the Far West side, and Calumet and South Chicago on the Far South side.
What the Police Department won’t discuss is if the huge increase in murders from January through March was tied to Chicago’s unseasonably mild winter. Criminologists have theorized the warmer temps drew more shooters outside. McCarthy has consistently disputed that theory and blamed the increase in the murder rate on an increase in gang activity. The Police Department estimates 75 percent of the murders this year are gang-related but, as we noted last week, what the Police Department defines as gang activity can sometimes be imprecise..