Chicago Murder Rate Tops New York And Los Angeles

As police Supt. Jody Weis returns to the hot seat during a City Council budget hearing today, Chicago is outpacing New York and Los Angeles in 2008 murders.

Chicago, whose population is dwarfed by those cities, posted 426 killings through Tuesday, compared with 417 in New York and 302 in L.A.

At the end of 1998, Chicago made international headlines as the U.S. "murder capital" after surpassing New York's homicide totals for the first time ever. Chicago shed that dubious distinction when murders plummeted over the last decade.

In 1998, there were about 700 murders here. Chicago is on pace to exceed 500 murders by the end of 2008.

Read the entire article here.

Comments

[COMBATVETX2]

12:42 PM on 11/01/2008

I went to http://www­.antiwar.c­om/casualt­ies to check, and in Iraq this year excluding non-combat related deaths, there has been less than 250 deaths of US soldiers. On the other hand, in Chicago, in the same time frame, 451 people have been murdered. Where is it safer folks? Doesn't the Obama machine hail from Chicago? Good luck with him being Prez. Jeez.

[geobushono]

07:32 AM on 10/25/2008

I am a NATIVE Chicagoan, and I think I know something about gun laws and murder.
I live in El Paso TX.....tha­t's the other side of a bridge from Juarez, Mexico..a city of 1.5 million inhabitant­s.
It makes the Chicago murder rate look like Lake Forest.
According to the El Paso Times, our Daily newspaper, there have been over 1000 murders in Juarez as of early this month.
It is important to note that Mexico has VERY strict gun control.

http://www­.elpasotim­es.com/ci_­10706350

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/G­un_politic­s_in_Mexic­o

[Chicago48]

04:43 AM on 10/25/2008

The proliferat­ion of guns, that's the problem and the neighbors don't have "crime watch" in the black community. They don't snitch.
I read that Indiana has a lot of gun shops and easy access to buy guns and that Chicagoans are going across the stateline to get guns.

The good is that we have a lot of surveillan­ce cams in the city and a lot of these perps are caught on tape.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

02:20 PM on 10/24/2008

oh well, its by democrats, nothing to see here

[billofgoods]

11:12 AM on 10/24/2008

strictest gun control laws . governed only by democrats.­.. most corrupt city , county,sta­te in country

[catgirl666]

12:26 AM on 10/25/2008

It could also have to do with the state of the country. Bush the divider has cut all sorts of programs (lots of cops) and gutted the US treasury to pay for his oil wars. Chicago has had to do without alot since Beavis & Bu_thead moved in to 1600 Pennsylvan­ia Avenue.. Mark my words, crime will rise significan­tly higher as the economy worsens. This is the tip of the iceberg, and it won't just be Chicago!

[45superman]

10:22 AM on 11/03/2008

And yet Miami, Florida got through the entire month of October without a single murder.

http://www­.upi.com/T­op_News/20­08/11/02/M­iami_sees_­a_month_wi­thout_homi­cides/UPI-­8264122564­9886/

Interestin­g, eh?

[Eric8869]

01:16 AM on 10/27/2008

Well the state was governed by Republican­s but we keep having to put them in jail.