With Their Elevated Homicide Rates, Four Cities Stand Out Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Memphis reach levels not seen since the 1990sBy Scott Calvert, Shibani Mahtani and Zusha Elinson
https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-their-rising-homicide-rates-four-cities-stand-out-1487592002?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=poptarget&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s
Murder rates in four of the nation’s big cities have returned to levels not seen since the 1990s, an alarming surge that police officials are struggling to slow even as crime nationally is near historic lows.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of homicide data since 1985 for the 35 largest cities shows that four—Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Memphis, Tenn.—have in the past two years approached or exceeded the records set a quarter-century ago, when cities across the country were plagued by gang wars and a booming crack trade.
Twenty-seven of the country’s 35 largest cities saw per capita homicide rates rise since 2014, though most are still relatively low compared with 1990s levels, the data show. Meantime, New York and Los Angeles, the two biggest cities, are experiencing long-term drops in murders.
Murders in Chicago last year rose to their highest rate since 1996, with 27.8 homicides for every 100,000 residents, based on police and the latest census data. Memphis equaled its highest rate last year in a Federal Bureau of Investigation database that goes back to 1985, at 32 murders per 100,000 residents.
The pace has continued in some of these places in the first seven weeks this year, with 47 people killed in Baltimore, putting the city on track for one of the highest annual rates since at least 1970.
In Chicago, there were 330 shootings so far as of Friday, compared with 324 over the same period last year. And in Milwaukee, 17 people have been killed, compared with nine at this point last year
Three young children in recent days were fatally shot in Chicago. “This violence offends all of our sensibilities,” said Kenneth Johnson, commander of the city’s Englewood police district. “We all have to work together…we all have to have some skin in this fight.”
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