9/18/2022
According to Chicago Police, reported citywide major violent and property crimes through Sept. 11 of this year were up 38 percent over 2021 and up 19 percent over 2019.
Shooting incidents, thefts and murders are each up a third versus the same stretch of 2019, and car thefts almost 75 percent.
Chicago will again exceed its 2019 baseline for homicides, illustrating the city has yet to recover from an ongoing storm of violence touched off after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in 2020.
Not only homicides but sharp hikes in motor vehicle theft, theft, carjacking, and other crimes are leading to trouble for the city as business leaders – including recently McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski – continue to question the city’s viability.
The backdrop is not encouraging. Through September 16th, Chicago has suffered 514 homicides, assuring the city will exceed the 528 homicides reported for the last pre-Covid year of 2019.
Through Sept. 11 in Police District 1, the South Loop and near South Side, crime is up dramatically compared to 2019. Likewise in District 19, or Lakeview, on the North Side, where motor vehicle theft, theft, and robbery have spiked.
In District 18, or the North Loop and Lincoln Park, the overall rise in major reported crimes is less great, but car thefts and criminal sexual assaults are up sharply.
Asked about Lightfoot’s ongoing emphasis that murders and shootings this year so far are down from last year, South Side activist Tamar Manasseh, founder of Mothers Against Senseless Killing, said, “Just because you said there was less (crime) doesn’t mean it’s less…it didn’t drop so much where the average person would see a difference.
You saying it’s not as violent as it was last year, but yet every single day (online), I’m seeing new and improved ways of people being murdered in Chicago. I’m sorry. That does nothing for me.”
Note: Sixty-six people were killed across the city in August, new department data shows, which brings the total number of homicides in 2022 up to 448.
That’s below the pace set in each of the last two years, but the total is more than 100 homicides higher than the first eight months of 2019.
“The Chicago Police Department works every day and every night to serve and protect, and engage and inform residents in every part of our city,” Police Superintendent David Brown said in a statement.
“Building trust in our community and enhancing communication are essential to impacting public safety across Chicago.”
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