At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 — and there’s still three weeks to go in the year according to a report from ABC News.
Of the dozen cities that have already surpassed the grim milestones for killings, five topped records that were set or tied just last year. “It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories.
It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said after his city surpassed its annual homicide record of 500, which stood since 1990.
Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; St Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Rochester, New York, and Albuquerque, New Mexico also had their deadliest years on record, according to the NYP.
Five of those cities topped notorious benchmarks that were set in 2020, the article said. All of them were led by Democratic mayors, as are the vast majority of US cities. Nationally, homicides rose by about 30% in 2020 compared to the previous year, according to FBI data.
It was the largest one-year jump since the bureau began keeping records. Guns were used in more than three-quarters of the murders, statistics showed. Although violent crime had gone up in New York City during the pandemic, the boroughs were far safer than in 1990, the city’s deadliest year, when 2,626 murders were recorded, according to the NYPD.
