CHICAGO, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The city of Chicago, which had the highest number of homicides of any U.S. big city in 2003, is on pace to finish 2004 with fewer than 500 homicides.
Chicago has not had fewer than 500 homicides since 1965, the Chicago Sun-Times said.
As of Monday, there had been 442 murders in the Windy City -- including eight people killed over the Christmas holiday weekend -- compared to 590 at the same time a year earlier, a police spokesman said. Chicago had 599 homicides in 2003.
New York City, No. 2 in murders with 597 in 2003, had 558 homicides through Sunday, 4.8 percent fewer than last year, the New York Daily News said. Homicides are down 70 percent in New York since 1993.
Chicago officials attribute the dramatic decline in homicides to a 25 percent drop in slayings in the city's African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods on the South and West sides because of innovate policing strategies like targeted response, which floods neighborhoods with uniformed officers in response to each reported shooting.
The homicide rate in some of the city's toughest police districts is down 50 percent from last year.
