Chicago sees drop in homicides, shootings in 2017
Chicago ended 2017 with fewer homicides than the year before, but gang violence in the city’s most dangerous neighbourhoods kept the total number of killings above the 600 mark for only the second time in more than a decade.
The Chicago Police Department released statistics Monday that show the number of homicides fell from 771 in 2016 to 650 last year. The number of shootings dropped from 3,550 to 2,785 during the same period.
Although the drops were significant, the homicide total in a repeat of 2016 eclipsed the number of killings in New York City and Los Angeles combined.
“You still have to start with the fact that 600 people dead in Chicago is a hell of a lot of people to be dead in one year,” said the Rev. Marshall Hatch, whose church is in one of the most violent neighbourhoods on the city’s West Side.