Chicago is now the murder capital of the United States, according to new statistics.
The FBI released the data earlier this week. Chicago police reported 500 murders in the city last year. That's up from the 431 murders recorded in 2011.
Chicago's number is significantly higher than New York's 419 recorded murders in 2012, despite the fact the Windy City only has one third as many residents as the Big Apple. (Via WFLD)
But residents of both cities were a lot less likely to be victims of a homicide than those who live in Flint,Michigan.
Flint reported only 63 murders, but the city has a population of more than 101,558 — which means one in every 1,613 residents were murder victims last year. (Via Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
And Detroit was a close runner-up, in that sense. The city reported 386 homicides for last year — that's enough murders to account for one in every 1,832 residents. (Via PBS)
To compare — according to the FBI’s stats, one in about every 5,430 Chicago residents were murder victims in 2012.
In all, the FBI reports violent crime rose by 0.7 percent across the nation last year, and 69 percent of all recorded homicides in the U.S. involved the use of a gun. (Via WMAQ)
But while the number of murders and aggravated assaults was on the rise, the number of robberies in the U.S. actually decreased — this is the tenth year in a row property crimes have been on the decline. (Via The Washington Post)
The western states saw the biggest increase in violent crime throughout the country, followed by the Midwest. But, there’s some good news — violent crime did fall in the southern states and the Northeast.
- See more at Newsy.com.
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