Move over New York, we're now the Second City for murders in US, second to Chicago.
According to FBI crime statistics released this week, Chicago had more homicides in 2012 than NYC, or any other city in the country. There were 500 murders in Chicago last year, according to the FBI and New York City had 419.
In 2011, there were 515 homicides in the Big Apple, compared with the 431 in Chicago.
But residents of Chicago and NYC were much less likely to be victims of a homicide than those in Flint, Michigan where there were 63 killings, which is an unbelievable statistic considering Flint's population is 101,632. This means that 1 in every 1,613 residents were homicide victims. In Detroit, Michigan there were 386 killings in 2012, That is 1 in 1,832 homicide victims.
The FBI estimated the number of violent crimes increased 0.7 percent, according to the same figures. However, property crimes decreased 0.9 percent, marking the 10th straight year of declines for these offenses, collectively.
The 2012 statistics show that the estimated rate of violent crime was 386.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the property crime rate was 2,859.2 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. While the violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged when compared to the 2011 rate, the property crime rate declined 1.6 percent.
Guns were used in the vast majority of slayings in the United States last year. According to the FBI data, 69.3 percent involved a firearm.
Overall, violent crime — homicides and aggravated assaults — was up less than 1 percent in 2012, according to FBI data.
There was some good news in the report. The estimated number of burglaries declined 3.7 percent in 2012, and property crimes (down 0.9 percent) fell for the 10th straight year.