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At least 12 major cities of the United States beat their annual homicide records in 2021 , and there are still three weeks left in the year.
Of the dozen cities that have already exceeded the grim murder count milestones, five cities broke homicide records that were set or tied last year , according to ABC News.
“It’s terrible to wake up every morning and have to look at the numbers and then watch the news and see the stories. It’s crazy. It’s crazy and this must end, ”said Philadelphia Mayor, Jim Kenney , after his city surpassed its annual homicide record of 500 , which was maintained since 1990.
Philadelphia, a city of approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, has had more homicides this year (521 as of December 6) than the two largest cities in the country, New York (443 as of December 5) and The Angels (352 as of November 5). 27 ). That’s an increase of the 13% since 2020, a year that nearly broke the record of 1990.
Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, leads the nation with 739 homicides at the end of November, 3% more than in 2020, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. Chicago’s deadliest year is still 1970, when there was 974 homicides.
Philadelphia’s homicide record was broken in the same week that Columbus, Indianapolis and Louisville eclipsed the murder records.
FBI crime data shows that the number of arrests nationwide collapsed a 24% in 2020, of the more than 10 million arrests made in 2019. The number of arrests in 2020, 7. 63 million, is the lowest in 25 years, according to the data.
Experts say there are a number of reasons possibly connected to the rise in homicides, including a shortage of police personnel, a steep decline in arrests and continuing difficulties from the coronavirus pandemic, but that there is no clear answer across the board.
5 cities beat homicide records set in 2020
Other major cities that have broken annual homicide records are : St. Paul, Minnesota; Portland, in Oregon; Tucson, in Arizona; Toledo, in Ohio; Baton Rouge, in Louisiana; Austin, in Texas; Rochester, in New York; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which broke its record in August.
“The community has to be fed up,” Captain Frank Umbrino of the Rochester Police Department said at a press conference after that the city of little more than 200 , 000 inhabitants broke their record of 30 years on 11 of November. “It is extremely frustrating. It has to end. I mean, lately it’s worse than a war zone around here. ”
Indianapolis , Columbus, Louisville, Toledo, and Baton Rouge broke homicide records set at 2020, while St. Paul surpassed a record set at 1992 .
Among the major cities that are about to set new homicide records are find Milwaukee, which has 200 homicides, 12 less than the record set at 2020; and Minneapolis, which has 91 homicides , six less than a record set at 1995.
According to him Annual FBI Uniform Crime Report released in September, the nation experienced an increase in 30% in murders in 2020, the biggest jump in a year since the office began recording statistics about crimes ago 60 years.
Dr. Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told ABC News that 2020 was the “perfect storm” of conditions in which “everything bad happened at the same time: the COVID outbreak, a great economic disruption and many people were scared. ”
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