Free Republic

Chicago - busy putting on its best face to garner a 2016 Olympics bid and basking in the afterglow of President Obama's election - has become the nation's most violent city for youths. With three weeks left before summer break, a record 36 Chicago Public Schools students have been killed this school year, marking the third straight year that youth homicides have climbed into double digits. Chicago has surpassed New York City and Los Angeles for having the highest youth homicide rate in the nation. "I think people in Chicago have almost gotten numb to the statistics," said Dexter Voisin,...

London, England (AHN) -- Even though British police announced a crackdown on knife-crime last week, six people have been killed and one critically wounded in a 24-hour period. Reports say all of the stabbings were in separate incidents. Four of the killed were Londoners, one attack happened in West Bromwich, and the other in Manchester. One of the London victims is still fighting for his life in the hospital. All were male, but their ages varied. Four of the men stabbed were 20, one was 41, one 19, and one's age was not disclosed, but he was described by the...

I’m a veteran and haven’t killed anybody in years. But if you read the New York Times you’d be right to worry that I might. The Sunday, 13 January 2008, edition of the Times spent four pages! detailing that, in the four and three-quarter years since the Iraq war began, returning soldiers, sailors, and airmen came home horribly scared—mentally, of course—and committed 121 murders. Which is a big number, no question; and probably some, or even most, of the people killed didn’t even have it coming to them. Military writer Ralph Peters, in today’s column for the New York Post,...

Three fatal shootings since Saturday have pushed San Francisco's murder total for the year to the highest level in more than a decade. In the latest killing, a 24-year-old man died after being shot in the city's Hunters Point neighborhood Monday afternoon. That murder follows the fatal shooting Saturday morning of two men who were gunned down in the city's Mission neighborhood. For the year, the homicide total in San Francisco now stands at 97 - the city's most killings in more than a decade. The last time the city had more than 97 homicides in one year was in...

...Of course, television doesn't always tell the whole story. The average American is 36 times more likely to die from heart disease than be murdered, six times more likely to die in an accident and four times more likely to die from Alzheimer's disease, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. But homicide does result in many thousands of deaths every year. And a comparison of the 72 American cities with a population over 250,000, using data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, reveals that...

The year's homicide count in Philadelphia reached 300 after two people were found dead this morning, police said. ---snip-- Last year, the city had 276 homicides through Sept. 19. This year, the number is 8 percent higher for that period and is on track to exceed the 406 homicides reported by year's end, the highest since 1997

Homicides are down sharply in Los Angeles County this year, possibly by as much as 14% countywide. But the stubborn problem of deadly violence grinds on in poor neighborhoods of the county at a rate far above the U.S. average... An online project of The Times called the Homicide Report has tracked Los Angeles County homicides, as they have happened, since the beginning of the year. The project has yielded a vivid statistical outline of the county's current homicide problem -- at least 520 killings by early August... Homicide is not fair, hitting hardest among Latinos and especially among blacks....

The city of Dallas is about to experience a huge drop in crime, but not because there are fewer victims. The police department recently discovered major flaws in the way it reports property crimes to the FBI. It's been happening for years, and it makes Dallas appear more crime ridden than New York and L.A.

East Coast cities that lack an influx of hardworking newcomers see violent crime soar PHILADELPHIA — Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants. The theory holds that waves of hardworking, ambitious immigrants reinvigorate desperately poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods and help keep crime down. It is a theory that runs counter to the widely held notion that immigrants are a source of crime and disorder. "New York, Los Angeles, they're seeing...

On the first day of summer, two violent outbursts less than 15 hours apart and about two miles from each other left five people dead and a sixth person clinging to life. And before the night ended, another homicide was recorded, this time in Kingsessing. Thursday's six slayings - three young men gunned down in North Philadelphia in the early hours; two people killed, one critically wounded, in Kensington in the afternoon; and an unidentified man shot to death about 10:30 p.m. in Southwest Philadelphia's Kingsessing neighborhood - pushed the year's homicide total to 195, compared with 177 at the...

A new study by a Tulane University professor puts New Orleans' murder rate as the highest in the country. The study estimates the city's 2006 murder rate at 96 per every 100,000 people. The new study, by demographer Mark VanLandingham, aims to fix the main flaw in previous per capita murder estimates for 2006: It takes into account the large change in New Orleans' population during the year, with far fewer people in the city at the beginning of 2006 than at the end. That change raises the murder rate substantially. "It's part of this big policy debate: How bad...

Here’s an interesting story that may help explain the local response to Katrina that has been entirely blamed on President Bush by the Democrats (New Orleans has been a Democrat stronghold for years) and by the mainstream press. After reading the following report, check out the graph that follows. Notice that the murder rate for Iraq compiled by the government of Iraq is higher than that compiled by the Associated Press. Notice also that the murder rate in New Orleans is higher in years 2003, 2004 and 2006 than Iraq's rate. In other words, not only is it higher, but...

YEAR-MURDERS in the United States2002-16,204 Murders2003-16,528 Murders2004-16,137 MurdersTotal-48,802 MurdersLink: 2002 Statistics Link: 2003 Statistics Link: 2004 Statistics

Additional writings from Chaplain Staton for this week: CRYING OUT I read and hear much about the crying out of people wanting us to pull out of Iraq because of the military deaths that are the result of being involved in that conflict. I deeply understand the concern and pain of those who have lost loved ones to this conflict. I also know the pain of the separation from loved ones that death brings into our lives. This crying out against the war in Iraq has caused me to give much thought to the great loses suffered by this country....

WASHINGTON - The nation's murder rate declined last year for the first time in four years, dropping to the lowest level in 40 years. Experts said local rather than national trends were mostly responsible.

The nation's murder rate declined last year for the first time in four years, dropping to the lowest level in 40 years. Experts said local rather than national trends were mostly responsible. The rates for all seven major crimes were down and the overall violent crime rate reached a 30-year low, according to the FBI's annual compilation of crimes reported to the police. There were 391 fewer murders nationwide in 2004 than the year before. The total of 16,137 worked out to 5.5 murders for every 100,000 people. That's a decline of 3.3 percent from 2003 and the lowest murder...

Please access the link here and read my message to radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh. It discusses the unethical strategy of the American mainstream news media. There are 16,889 homicides per year in America, but all that we hear from the mainstream media is their envious opposition to our war effort in Iraq. ~Scott~

08/19/2005| Print this article  |  EMail this article to a friend  | Discuss this Article | Murder numbers creeping back up in the Big Easy By ALAN SAYRE Associated Press Writer NEW ORLEANS- Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire. New Orleans residents are reluctant to come forward as witnesses, fearing retaliation. And experts say that is one of several reasons homicides are on the rise in the Big Easy at a time when other cities are seeing their murder...

For the 19th time in the past 20 years, New Orleans has exceeded 200 murders. What is so disturbing is that it is only August and gruesomely high mark has already been exceeded. Where is the outrage? Where is the action? New Orleans is in the midst of a crisis, but the people have become so desensitized to the violence that the response is mere lethargy. New Orleans has so many incredible selling points—culture, food, people, history, architecture, festivals, charm and more; however, all of the attractiveness of New Orleans means nothing if citizens and tourists cannot feel safe. The...

Los Angeles has been called the murder capital of the United States. But a new study of homicide rates that takes poverty into account challenges this notion: By this new measure, Los Angeles actually falls nearer the middle of the pack for homicide rates — 24th on a list of 67 large American cities in 2002, and 42nd on the same list in 2003. That put Los Angeles just below Chicago and Dallas for 2002, and just above Denver and Philadelphia — although there were 653 killings in Los Angeles that year, the most of any city in the nation....