Baltimore survives another year, so it’s time to look back and count the casualties. 271 murders in 2003, that’s a seven percent increase over last year’s 253 murders.

Police commissioner Clark commented that the murder increase was partly due to the use of more bullets, which reminds me of the old anti-NRA joke, “Guns don’t kill people, bullets do.” What Clark meant was that there was an increase in number of victim who suffered multiple shots, but the statistics show that there was only a three percent increase in such killings.

But the news isn’t all bad, there was actually a fifteen percent decrease in overall violent crime.

Some other cities:

Chicago:
2002 648
2003 599

New York:
2002 584
2003 596

Los Angeles:
2002 658
2003 under 500

Washington D.C.:
2002 262
2003 247

St. Louis:
2002 113
2003 69

Detroit:
2002 402
2003 about 365

Philadelphia
2002 288
2003 347