Chicago: 2016 Ends With 762 Homicides; More Than NYC And L.A. Combined

The city of Chicago recorded 762 homicides in 2016 — an average of two murders per day, the most killings in the city for two decades and more than New York and Los Angeles combined.

Data kept by the Chicago Tribune tallied at least 781 homicides for the year; the Police Department statistics do not include killings on area expressways, police-involved shootings, other homicides in which a person was killed in self-defense or death investigations.

Statistics for the city as a whole have been grim enough to receive national attention and to compell the police department to make public its plan for combatting crime this year.

“2016 saw an unacceptable rise in violence, beginning at the outset of the year,” said Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.

At a news conference at police headquarters, Superintendent Eddie Johnson lamented the gun violence that ensnared the city’s West and South sides, casting much of the blame on “anti-police sentiment,” and the judicial system’s lax sentencing guidelines for repeat gun offenders.

“In many instances, the individuals who chose to pull the trigger are repeat gun offenders emboldened by the national climate against law enforcement and willing to test the limits of our criminal justice system,” Johnson said. “… These emboldened criminals are responsible for destroying families and communities as well as dozens of attacks on Chicago police officers in 2016.”