Other cities are seeing similar violence: In Chicago, more than 100 people were shot over the weekend, the most in a single weekend since 2012, and 14 died. That carnage came just weeks after 24 people were killed among 85 people shot over Memorial Day weekend. Many were caught in crossfire.
In Minneapolis, police said 111 people have been shot in the four weeks after the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in police custody, sparking protests across the country.
Nationally, homicide rates were already increasing in 64 major US cities during the first three months of 2020 in the past three years, but on average the pandemic stopped briefly, before increasing again in May, Richard said Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis Rosenfeld is also a co-author of a study on the murder rates during the pandemic that Arnold Ventures will publish on Thursday, a philanthropy focused on criminal justice and other topics.
In New York, there were 166 murders through June 21, up from 134 in the same period last year, police said.
Part of that increase can be attributed to both the stress of the pandemic and the recent riots, although the main reason cited by criminologists was the advent of summer, traditionally a season of high crime because people are out longer and the mood is they burn in the heat. .
In New York, police have linked the increase in gun violence to a bail law enacted this year, which limited the ability of judges to keep people in jail before trial if they had been arrested on certain charges, as well such as the release of thousands of people from jail and prison to help curb the coronavirus. Chief LiPetri said 17 percent of the shootings involved people on probation or on parole.
Even veteran observers of the city’s crime trends saw the jump in New York City as remarkable.
“I have been studying this for a long time. I’ve never seen such a big increase, “said Christopher Herrmann, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who once analyzed crime statistics from the New York City Police Department.
