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There were 664 homicides in Chicago in 2017 and, for comparison, 37 casualties in the U.S. military in its myriad operations around the globe. That’s according to data from the Chicago Tribune and from the Department of Defense’s press office. The Chicago deaths are for the period Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2017; the military deaths are from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 22, 2017, which is the latest update on casualties by the DoD posted so far. (There may have been a few more military casualties in December.) From the data available, it shows that Chicago suffered 17.9...

In the absence of police participation- robberies, shootings and homicides have soared in these cities and other similar cities BLM and Liberal Press Bashing of American Cops Lead to Greater Gun Violence Mitch Wolfe October 4, 2017 The latest FBI report on gun violence in American cities, especially in specific liberal Democratic-controlled cities- discloses a very inconvenient truth. The relentless bashing and public criticism of urban cops by the activist BLM (Black Lives Matter), the liberal press+ liberal civic leaders have had the unintended consequence of producing a huge increase in black on black killings in certain visible minority cities....

It has become an annual rite with the Violence Policy Center to release a report claiming, “Firearms 100 times more likely to kill women than protect them.” Last year, the New York Times and Vice carried the claims.

Erricka Bridgeford received a standing ovation from the congregation at Kingdom Life Church Sunday. Bridgeford, a special guest at the church in West Baltimore, and others had called for a 72-hour halt to the violence that has claimed the lives of more than 200 people in Baltimore so far this year — the fastest pace of violence in modern Baltimore history through July. Groups took the message to the streets, hosting dozens of events, staying out all night and offering food and services. The ceasefire was to end at midnight. Despite their efforts, four people were shot, two of them...

A drug kingpin in Mexico who has never set foot in Chicago has been named the city's new Public Enemy No. 1 — the same notorious label assigned to Al Capone at the height of the Prohibition-era gang wars. The Chicago Crime Commission announced the move Thursday, saying it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because he's the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in the city. "Of the two, Guzman is by far the greater threat. ... And he has more power and financial capability than Capone ever dreamed...

Six people have been killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and at least 44 other people have been wounded in Chicago shootings throughout the Memorial Day weekend. The shootings happened between 6 p.m. Friday and 3 a.m. Tuesday, with a late surge of violence leaving 13 people shot in less than four hours Monday night. The most recent fatal shooting happened around 2:45 a.m. Tuesday. A 21-year-old man was inside a vehicle when someone fire shots at the car, striking the man multiple times, once in the back and through his heart, police said. The man was taken to John H....

BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (AP) — A man who apparently got into a dispute with his wife and in-laws was arrested in a house-to-house shooting rampage in rural Mississippi that left eight people dead, including a sheriff’s deputy. “I ain’t fit to live, not after what I done,” a handcuffed Willie Corey Godbolt, 35, told The Clarion-Ledger (http://on.thec-l.com/2rbQIq5 ).

<p>Shootings and homicides in Chicago are higher than this time last January, a month that marked the deadliest start to a year in the city in nearly two decades.</p> <p>As of early Monday, at least 228 people had been shot in Chicago so far this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the 216 shot in the same period time last year. There have been at least 42 homicides, up 23.5 percent from the 34 homicides from the same period in 2016.</p>

The weekend before President Obama’s planned farewell address was a good one by Chicago’s violent standards — only one person was killed by gunfire and eight others were wounded. As Mr. Obama returns home Tuesday to deliver his final speech as president, Chicago is in the grips of a soaring homicide rate and reeling from a horrific black-on-white torture hate crime that was captured on video. Over Christmas weekend, 12 Chicagoans were killed in a total of 27 shootings. Amid criticism that the president and his former chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have failed for eight years to address...

Image from Fox6now.com 63rd and Euclid in Milwaukee It was a dark and cold winter night on Tuesday, 27 December in Milwaukee, at 10 p.m. The sun had set more than three hours ago. There was no moon, but there was a cold breeze. The temperature held at 23 degrees. The blustery wind of the afternoon had dropped off. A 36-year-old Milwaukee resident was walking his dog in a secluded neighborhood. Street lights were far apart.Two teenage criminals were in a car, cruising for trouble. They found it. The armed teens attempted to rob the man. He had a...

Image from HeyJackass.com While the site HeyJackass.com is not an “official” tabulator of homicides in Chicago, they seem to do a fairly credible job.  They show that 9 out of about 700 homicides in Chicago this year have been listed as from self defense, and there are 11 listed as police related. That is close to the official ratio listed in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for the nation, which show police justified homicide a little bit greater than non-police justified homicides.  Both of those numbers are significantly under reported. Only about one out of five non-police justified...

... There have been 22 homicides in the Prince William so far in 2016, compared to 10 last year. In many communities, the prospect of 22 murders in a year might not seem like a cause for concern. This year the District has so far tallied 134 slayings and neighboring Fairfax County so far had 18 homicides. But the numbers in Prince William County are the highest in the county since authorities began tracking homicides in 1975. The next most deadly year was 2006, when 16 people were slain. ... Experts attribute the increase to a range of factors, including...

November was another bloody month in Chicago, ending with more than twice as many homicides as during the same month last year. The 77 homicides recorded in November 2016 mark the highest death toll for that month in nearly a quarter century. The increase comes as the city and police department scramble to bring the number of killings down with initiatives targeting high crime areas and a plan to add 970 new police positions. …

We have frequently written about rising violent crime around the U.S. with an emphasis on the soaring homicides in Chicago which are up nearly 50% YoY (see recent posts here and here). Now it seems as though others in the mainstream media are starting to take notice. The New York Times recently compiled data from around the country and found there were nearly 6,700 homicides reported in the 100 largest cities in 2015, a YoY increase of 950 or roughly 17%, with nearly half of the rise — 480 of the 950 — coming from seven cities. Their study is...

Chicago is poised to see the number of homicides in July dip from June, but the city is still on pace to see more people killed in 2016 than last year. There were 65 homicides in Chicago in July, according to Chicago Police. There were 71 homicides in the city in June and 66 in May.The city has recorded 381 homicides so far in 2016, police said. That’s up about 44 percent from last year, when the city had 264 murders through July 31, 2015.

Authorities announced a $50,000 reward Wednesday as they renewed their search for an elusive serial killer they say committed at least 12 homicides, 45 rapes and dozens of burglaries across California in the 1970s and 1980s. The case has grown cold for the killer known by at least four nicknames over the decades. He was dubbed the East Area Rapist after his start in Northern California. The Original Night Stalker after a series of Southern California slayings. The Diamond Knot Killer for using the elaborate knot to bind two of his victims. And most recently the Golden State Killer.

The Nationwide Crime Wave Is Building As the homicide rate keeps rising in many cities, even some who dismissed the ‘Ferguson effect’ admit the phenomenon is real. By Heather Mac Donald May 23, 2016 Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has again drawn the wrath of the White House for calling attention to the rising violence in urban areas. Homicides increased 9% in the largest 63 cities in the first quarter of 2016; nonfatal shootings were up 21%, according to a Major Cities Chiefs Association survey. Those increases come on top of last year’s 17% rise in homicides in...

Valerie Caldwell used her rifle to kill this mountain lion that stalked her in New Mexico in 2014.  It was less than a car length away, ready to spring. She was 12. It is a staple of disarmists that the phrase "Guns kill people" is a truism. But a more valid truism holds: "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."  The maxim that "guns kill people" is simply false.   As true believers in the maxim, disarmists have attempted to craft studies to show that it is true.  The "studies"...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The city of Indianapolis is at its highest homicide rate in eight years. The Department of Public Safety says 137 people lost their lives to violence so far this year. In addition to homicides, there has been 412 non-fatal shootings, up 79 from last year, including one Tuesday morning on 29th Street near Rader Street "That's the most terrible feeling that any parent could feel and witness," said Betty Killebrew, the mother of Tuesday morning's victim. "My son was just laying there on the ground saying that he couldn't feel his legs." Killebrew says she was inside...

....based on around-the-clock reporting by the Chicago Tribune staff....