More than two-thirds of the US' 40 most populous cities saw more homicides last year than in 2020, according to a CNN analysis of police department data.
Ten of those cities recorded more homicides in 2021 than any other year on record. Those are Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; Milwaukee; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Tucson, Arizona. Minneapolis tied its previous record number of homicides, with 97 in the years 1997 and 2021. Many cities have seen homicides reach near-record highs in the past year. Chicago police investigated 797 last year, the most since 1996.
Homicides rose sharply in the summer of 2020 and have remained at high levels since.According to the 2020 Uniform Crime Report from the FBI, homicides rose 30% from 2019 to 2020, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s."The pandemic, like community gun violence, concentrates among the poorest and most disenfranchised people," Abt told CNN in December.