By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Illinois’ media continues to give state and city politicians cover for their many failures, with the DNC sending those efforts into overdrive. The media is so protective, in fact, that even pointing out the city’s obvious failures can get you dismissed as racist.
The latest instance comes from a recent Chicago Sun-Times article written by Alden Loury and Natalie Moore. Its title purports to fact check JD Vance’s declaration of Chicago as the nation’s murder capital, but the article is really more of a murders-and-crime-are-not-as-bad-as-they-say sort of piece.
And to make sure everyone knows what Moore thinks of Vance: “Racism gets in the way of real work,” she posted on X, saying she had to interrupt her nap time to do the fact check.
Before we get to the facts on murder, let’s get the “racism” charge out of the way.
The designation of Chicago as the nation’s murder capital is not some designation from the right. No more than PBS news a decade ago described the city that way, giving it the “unwanted title of the murder capital of the United States.”
And has somebody not told Moore that 586 of 617 murder victims in Chicago last year were minorities, most of them black? Drawing attention to the suffering of those groups is somehow racist?
Moore needs to explain herself. Not that she will.
On the murder front, Moore’s argument is that “murder rates, or the number of homicides per capita, are more useful than absolute numbers for understanding residents’ chances of being murdered.”
While it’s true that per capita numbers allow for an apples-to-apples comparison across cities, it can also overstate the importance of small cities with high homicide rates and discount the massive amount of blood being spilled in big cities like Chicago.
That’s why Wirepoints’ recent report on 2023 homicides crowned two murder capitals among the nations’ 75 largest cities. Chicago had the nation’s most murders, 617, while St. Louis, with just 169 murders, had the country’s highest murder rate, at 60 per 100,000 residents. Wirepoints limited the scope of its analysis to the nation’s 75 largest cities to maintain data integrity.
However, it’s easy to find even smaller cities where the per capita numbers are even bigger. Jackson, Mississippi, for example, with 118 murders and just 150,000 residents had a murder rate of 78.9 in 2023. Should Jackson be crowned the murder capital of the country?
We can go even further down the list to West Garfield Park. No, it’s not a city, just a neighborhood in Chicago, but with 29 murders it’s got a whopping murder rate of 165 per 100,000. That’s more than double the rate in Jackson. Should West Garfield Park be the nation’s murder capital?
No, because scale matters. Comparing Garfield Park to Jackson makes no sense, nor does comparing Jackson to Chicago. It’s like comparing the MVP in the minor leagues to the MVP of the major leagues.
Chicago should really be compared to its major league peers (the nation’s 20 most populous cities). And in that case, Chicago came in 2nd in murders per capita in 2023, behind only Philadelphia.
But in terms of the number of homicides, Chicago has beaten out the entire nation for 12 years in a row. That fact alone should be more than enough for Chicago to claim the murder-capital crown. And it should repulse every single media person in Illinois into attacking the city leadership for its failures.
The cumulative number of murders over that 12-year period should also repulse the media. Nearly 7,200 people have been murdered since 2012. No other city in the country comes even close. Even New York City, triple the population of Chicago, experienced just 4,500 murders over the same period.
And if Chicago’s 2024’s homicides continue their current pace, it will be 13 straight years and around 7,700 dead.
Moore also tried to dismiss Chicago’ overall crime rates, either not knowing or ignoring the fact that violent crimes are on track for a six-year high. That’s more than 20,000 traumatized victims if this year’s pace continues.
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Chicago’s criminal justice system is sick.
Most murders in the country. Twelve years in a row. 7,200 dead since 2012.
And much of the media would still rather defend the indefensible instead of holding the city’s leadership accountable.
That, too, is sick.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- The DNC is coming to Chicago, the nation’s homicide capital 13 years running – A Wirepoints survey of America’s 75 largest cities
- If you’re shot, robbed or assaulted in Chicago, there’s a 50/50 chance there’ll be no police to respond to your 911 call
- ‘Justice-impacted individuals’: More of the same as Chicago’s violent crimes continue their six-year high
- Chicago criminals have green light to rob, loot, burgle as odds of punishment collapse to near zero.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
The government isnt here to protect you, never has, never will. The government is into protecting the government. Dont rely on the government to protect you, learn to protect yourselves. Government couldnt care less if you live or die. They would actual prefer if you die during social security collecting years, because then they dont have to pay out anymore, kind of like the plandemic and trying to force jab everyone. Yeah, government is not your friend.
Racism is a term pushed by the government to divide the people, plain and simple
Did you see anyone at the DNC who cared? Chicagoans and Illinoisans have this innate stupidity that makes them think their government cares what happens to them and wants to address their problems. For most black people, this stupidity approaches a mental illness. All of you are their property. They care about you as far as they can squeeze profit from your slavery. Once there is no more money, they wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.
You can’t fix a problem until first you admit you have one. Leftist Democrats don’t want to really fix anything about crime or violence – they prefer to politic on it as though they have some moral authority. Moore, Stacy, Johnson, KamAla, and Walz all talk like adolescent nitwits. Anyone who supports these nitwits must be just as dumb.
St Louis metro area is 2.8 mil population. But St Louis city population is only 287K, it’s tinny with a 44% Black population. Probably the more horrific homicide rate comparison that progressives would immediately condemned as racist or the result of systemic racist legacy would to investigate which major US cities have the highest Black homicide rate per 100,000. or for Chicago, per WP article 617 total homicides in 2023 of which 77.5% are Black, or 617 x .775=478 total Black homicides. Chicago population for 2023 is 2.64 mil (?) with 28.5% Black population (?), or 2.64 mil x .285… Read more »
Yes, you are correct. You have to look deep into X to find these stats but the ‘Noticing’ guy, who cannot be named, recently posted a stat on this. https://twitter.com/Steve_Sailer/status/1680011772542205952 The black homicide rate for men 20-24 years old is 137 per 100,000; and for 25-29 it is 118 per 100,000. By comparison, for white men in the same age groups, it’s 5 per 100,000. The reality is that young black men go around committing violent crime at rates exponentially higher rates than every other demographic. In the past, society tried to lock up as many of the guilty ones… Read more »
When you combine woke ideology, horrific schools, lack of law enforcement, and the lack of a father in 75% of black family homes, apparently bad things result. What a surprise!
Yep and all of these bad outcomes are the result of Democratic Party policies.