Crime down in Windy City? Chicago just had its least violent January in 9 years

CHICAGO — The nation’s third-largest city recorded 20 homicides in January, the fewest number of killings for the month in nine years and what police are trumpeting as a positive sign that Chicago is turning the corner in reducing the scourge of gun violence.

While FBI data shows that the national homicide rate has hovered near historic lows in recent years, Chicago is one of a few big U.S. cities that has struggled with gun violence in recent years. The city endured 777 homicides in 2016, 660 in 2017 and 561 murders last year— more than any other U.S. city in each of those years.

The city saw 100 shooting incidents for the month, the fewest in five years, according to police department data.

Police officials say the reduction in killings is, at least in part, driven by the department adding more than 1,100 officers over the last two years as well as efforts to improve relations with residents living in some of the city’s most violence-plagued neighborhoods and investments in analytic tools that’s helped police better predict where crime may occur.

“Are we where we want to be? No,” said Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. “However, these figures prove that community policing has considerable merit. CPD continues to invest in ways to incorporate the invaluable knowledge of those living within our neighborhoods into our public safety strategy.”

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The least violent January for Chicago since 2010 — that year police tallied 19 homicides for the month — comes as the city ended the month with historic cold weather. Wind chills dipped to minus 50 degrees this week and the city endured 14 straight days of measurable snow.

The bulk of gun violence in the city tends to happen in the warmer months.

The city experienced a surge in killings following the court-ordered release in late 2015 of a controversial police video that showed a white officer shooting a black teen 16 times.

The officer, Jason Van Dyke, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison earlier this month after being convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery for the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald.

That shooting spurred protests and increased scrutiny of the department. On Thursday, a federal judge approved an agreement between the State of Illinois and city that will require the police department to undertake dozens of reforms.

Even before the McDonald shooting, the police department’s relationship in the African-American community had been strained by a long history of police brutality and allegations of heavy-handed tactics in the city’s low-income and minority communities.

Chicago borrowed about $709 million to pay settlements for police misconduct cases from 2010 to 2017, according to a report from the Action Center on Race & the Economy.

The  majority of homicides in Chicago take place in a smattering of deeply impoverished, African-American neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.  

A new study published Friday by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute argues that race and concentrated poverty, more than gangs, is the driver of homicides in the city. Although the population of blacks, Latinos, and whites in Chicago are nearly equal, more than 75 percent of homicide victims in Chicago are black, according to the study.

“We should stop scapegoating gangs and focus on the real problem of devastated neighborhoods," said John Hagedorn, a fellow at the Great Cities Institute and co-author of the report.