Murder rates across the United States have skyrocketed since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over 2020, homicides spiked to a 30-year high of nearly 30 percent. Throughout 2021, most cities saw another four percent increase, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The murders accounted for 6.9 people for every 100,000 citizens, the highest murder rate since 1996 where the murder rate was 7.4 per 100,000 people, according to Just The News.
In Los Angeles, the homicide rate rose nearly 12 percent over the course of 2021. While the mayor and police chief were both aware of these statistics, Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “To put that in context, I remember the first half of this past year, when those numbers were well north of 25%,” according to ABC7.
“Los Angeles is not alone in this trend. Now to put it in context again, the six most populous cities in America, besides New York, this is the safest city when it comes to homicides. In Chicago and Philadelphia and Houston and even in Phoenix, those numbers are higher,” the Democrat mayor said.
In other cities, the murder rate has slowed since 2020, however still at record highs. In New York City, there was a 45 percent increase in 2020, with the year 2021 just hitting a 4 percent increase. Chicago was similar, seeing a 55 percent increase in 2020, and 3 percent rise in the year 2021.
In the city of Dallas, the murder rate has gone down. When asked about how law enforcement was able to combat the homicide issue plaguing the country, police chief Eddie Garcia told the Wall Street Journal that, “Our police officers nationally have felt unappreciated, they felt under fire,” he said. “That’s led to disengagement in our communities where we need to engage even more.”
Along with crime, gun purchases also rose in the year 2020, hitting records for amount of background checks that were placed on Americans wishing to buy guns, clocking in at 21 million background checks in total.
