The New York Times: CHICAGO TACTICS PUT MAJOR DENT IN KILLING TREND: - Early Results as Police Focus on Gangs -- Effort Is Costly," by Monica Davey in Cbicago : "A year after this city drew new attention for soaring gun violence and gang bloodshed, creating a political test for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in President Obama's hometown, Chicago has witnessed a drop in shootings and crime. Killings this year have dipped to a level not seen since the early 1960s. So far in 2013, Chicago homicides, which outnumbered slayings in the larger cities of New York and Los Angeles last year, are down 34 percent from the same period in 2012. As of Sunday night, 146 people had been killed in Chicago, the nation's third-largest city - 76 fewer than in the same stretch in 2012 and 16 fewer than in 2011 ... [A]s many as 400 officers a day, working overtime, have been dispatched to just 20 small zones deemed the city's most dangerous. ... [T]he police ... are focusing on more than 400 people they have identified as having associations that make them the most likely to be involved in a murder, as a victim or an offender.
"As Mr. Emanuel , who has said he intends to run for re-election, begins the second half of his first term, it is unclear whether the months of lessened violence will generate a lasting trend, particularly given a spring of rainy, chilly weather here that some experts say may have kept people off the streets and contributed to the relative calm. Homicides have also decreased in New York ... and in Los Angeles ... 'It's good, but not good enough,' Mr. Emanuel said in an interview ,,, He added that a parent had approached him in one of the neighborhoods now saturated with police officers, saying she had started to feel comfortable allowing her child to walk to school. 'That to me is the biggest, most important, most significant measure - that a mother feels comfortable and confident enough where she didn't in past years to have her child walk to school.' Critics question whether the city can continue to pay for the added police presence. By the end of April, $31.9 million of the $38 million set aside in the city budget for police overtime for the year had been spent."
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Posted By: Jen Fad
Tuesday, June 11th 2013 at 10:08AM
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