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According to newly-released crime statistics for the month of July, murders in the city were nearly the same as the number reported last year, but shootings increased by 15% and the number of people shot in the city rose by nearly 10% year-over-year.
Those statistics, released by the Chicago Police Department Sunday morning, show that there were 105 homicides recorded in the month of July. That is down slightly from last summer, when 107 people were killed in July, but up significantly over 2019, when 44 murders were recorded, representing a 139% increase in monthly homicides within the last two years.
Police say that 445 homicides have been recorded so far in 2021, compared to 446 during the first seven months of 2020. Once again, both numbers are significantly higher than those recorded in 2019, when 290 people were killed in the first seven months of the year, representing a 53.4% increase.
Shootings in the month of July trended upward from last year, with 461 reported in 31 days. There were 402 recorded shootings last year, and 232 in July 2019, representing a 99% increase within the last two years.
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In all, 614 people were shot in July 2021, compared to 561 in the same month last year.
During the first seven months of 2021, there have been 1,973 shootings in the city of Chicago, with 2,471 total victims. Both of those numbers are up over last year’s statistics, when there were 1,779 shootings and 2,217 victims in the first seven months of the year.
In 2019, 1,480 people were shot in the city through seven months, with this year’s numbers representing a 67% increase over that figure. There were 1,210 shootings recorded through seven months of 2019, with this year’s tally representing a 63% increase.
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The police department says that its successes in seizing illegal guns have continued, with the city on pace to recover more than 12,000 illegal weapons by the end of the year. The department says that gun seizures are up by 28% year-over-year, with 3,477 total gun arrests made so far this year, a 23% increase over last year.
The city also recorded 20-year-lows in aggravated batteries, burglaries and robberies, according to statistics.
