Chicago’s July homicide stats are tough to look at, but they’re just as difficult to ignore. Let’s see if we can put these numbers in perspective.
I probably should begin by saying Chicago homicides are not all happening in one neighborhood. If you know someone who works for CPD, I’m sure he or she would be more than happy to tell you that. I can only imagine how difficult that is to police. In Chicago, the question is not where the homicides ARE but where the homicides AREN’T. MOST Chicago neighborhoods had at least one homicide this year.
The “hot spots” where you saw the highest volume of homicides this year were Austin and Englewood. Both of these neighborhoods had over 30 homicides, so, yes, that’s at least one homicide per week on average. I invite you to find these two locations on a map. They are very far from one another. If there is a silver lining here there were no reported homicides in Englewood in July.
Something else worth mentioning is CPD has seized over 5,700 illegal guns this year. I’ll let you calculate how many hundreds of illegal guns that is per month.
I figured this would be useful for those who sincerely want to do something about this.
References
- Chicago sees 139% jump in murders, uptick in shootings in July 2020: police. https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/8/1/21350547/chicago-crime-stats-july-increase-murders-shootings. Last accessed: 8/3/2020.
- Homicides in Chicago: A list of every victim. https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/?_ga=2.268161100.359989542.1551114885-1053806772.1520361305. Last Accessed: 8/3/2020.
