Records are made to be broken.
Chicago ticked past a pair of grim milestones as August passed into September. Chicago Police said 90 people were murdered in the city in August. A few hours into Sept. 1, the total number of murders in 2016 reached 469, exceeding the tally for all of last year.
The number of murders in August was the most in a single month during an already bloody year, and the most in a one-month span in 20 years.
Year-to-date, the city has endured a 50 percent increase in murders and a similar spike in other categories of violent crime, while also grappling with public furor over police tactics following the release last year of video of a CPD officer pumping 16 bullets into teenager Laquan McDonald.
August also saw the city’s crime troubles receiving national attention. While other large cities have notched significant surges in violence, the 50 percent increase in shootings and murders in Chicago was an outlier. Numerous news reports have noted that the number of murders in Chicago is greater than the total for New York City and Los Angeles combined.[…]
CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi noted several positive trends in the year-to-year comparison of 2016 and 2015: There were nearly 20 percent more murder arrests this August than last, and CPD officers have taken 5,900 guns off the street through seizures and gun buy-back events, a 22 percent increase.
“That tells me that the police officers that have sworn to protect and serve are doing their jobs,” CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said during one of several interviews with local TV stations on Thursday.
Returning to themes that the police chief has sounded in virtually every public appearance since he was appointed to the post earlier this year, Johnson said that a relative handful of repeat offenders drive most of the violence, and he called for longer prison sentences to keep them off the streets.
“Where we need help is holding these repeat gun offenders accountable for their actions,” Johnson said. “Right now in the city of Chicago, would you believe me if I told you, pre-trial, a person who steals a pack of hot dogs for retail theft does more time in jail than a gun offender does. That’s ridiculous.”