Chicago ‘proud’ of drop in homicides to 650 ...

Chicago — Chicago ended 2017 with fewer homicides than the year before, but gang violence in the city's most dangerous neighborhoods kept the total number of killings above the 600 mark for only the second time in more than a decade.

The Chicago Police Department released statistics Monday that show the number of homicides fell from 771 in 2016 to 650 last year. The number of shootings dropped from 3,550 to 2,785 during the same period.

Although the drops were significant, the homicide total in a repeat of 2016 eclipsed the number of killings in New York City and Los Angeles combined.

“You still have to start with the fact that 600 people dead in Chicago is a hell of a lot of people to be dead in one year,” said the Rev. Marshall Hatch, whose church is in one of the most violent neighborhoods on the city's West Side.

Still, the drops — and the reasons behind the lower numbers — have police and others optimistic that some of their efforts will lead to more declines over the next year. Chief among those efforts will be the expansion of the high-tech strategies and equipment to fight crime, including devices that pinpoint where gunshots are fired.

“I am proud of the progress our officers made in reducing gun violence all across the city in 2017,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.

Police have been encouraged by the results of setting up Strategic Decision Support Centers in six of the city's 22 police districts. The centers are equipped with sound-detection technology that enables the department to instantly know where the sound of gunfire is coming from and to alert officers through computer screens in their squad cars and smartphones.