During a telephone interview with the Chicago Tribune on Monday, police superintendent Garry McCarthy divulged that homicides in the city of Chicago were up by more than 50 percent in January.

Homicide is the only category of crime to see an increase thus far in 2012. Half of these homicides occurred in the city’s Englewood and Harrison neighborhoods.

As we told you last week, over 500 young people have been murdered in the city of Chicago since 2008. Although these new homicide numbers cover a short period time, they only further cement the need for something to be done about the pervasive violence in our communities.

From the Chicago Tribune:

“At an unrelated news conference Monday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel highlighted Chicago’s continuing gang problems as the source of the continuing concern over the homicide rate.

‘Chicago has a problem unlike any other major city given the size of our gangs.,’ the mayor said. ‘… Nobody can be content, but we are making progress in the right things that are necessary to bring a level of safety to our streets.’

McCarthy recently introduced a new strategy to combat violence in the Englewood and Harrison police districts, two of the more dangerous parts of the city, by calling for the saturation of officers in hot spots within those districts for a lengthy periods of time.”

Read the rest of this article at ChicagoTribune.com

 

Do you think the mayor’s office and the Chicago Police Department can bring the homicide  numbers down  in Chicago?

What will it take to curb the violence in our communities?

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