Chicago on pace for another record deadly year

Jon Street  Jul 25, 2017 3:17 pm

Chicago is on pace for another record deadly year in 2017, according to data published by the Chicago Tribune. (Image source: Scott Olson/Getty Images screenshot) 

Last year, Chicago saw its highest number of homicides in two decades. Now, the nation’s third-largest city is on pace to set a new record.

The Chicago Tribune reported last year that more than 750 people were killed, nearly 300 more than in 2015. It was the deadliest year for homicides in Chicago since 1997 when 752 slayings were reported, according to the Tribune, which tracks the number of reported violent crimes in the city.

But if the first seven months of 2017 are any indication, Chicago could see even more homicides by the end of the year than it did in 2016.

As of the weekend, there were 391 reported homicides in Chicago. That’s four more than at the same point last year.

The number of homicides in Chicago so far this year includes six just last weekend. The youngest victim over the weekend was just 18 years old, according to the Tribune, and the oldest victim was 35 years old.

And homicide is not the only form of crime that is currently on the rise in Chicago. As TheBlaze reported earlier this year, nearly all forms of violent crime in Chicago increased by double digits in 2016. Those forms of violent crimes included sexual assaults, robberies, and assaults.

In total, more than 4,300 people were shot in Chicago in 2016 — more than the number of shootings and homicides in New York City and Los Angeles during the same year, combined. If there is any consolation in the newly published crime numbers, it is that fewer people have been shot in 2017 in Chicago than at the same point in 2016.

At the same point in 2016, 2,337 were shot. In 2017, that number was  2,112.

The staggering amount of crime in the Windy City highlights what has become a national crisis. President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office in January, threatened to “send in the Feds” if Chicago police were unable to get the city’s crime problem under control.

Chicago has had some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

Late last year, however, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson questioned the effectiveness of those policies.

“These gun offenders have repeatedly shown us that they’re not going to play by society’s rules,” Johnson said in December.