Detroit police understate homicides

DETROIT, June 18 (UPI) -- Detroit police routinely understated homicide numbers, but the actual count is the nation's highest among big cities, The Detroit News reported.

The newspaper's analysis of police and medical examiner records found police had incorrectly reclassified 22 of 368 homicides last year as "justifiable" and did not report them to the FBI.

For 2008, the newspaper found, the police also excluded the murders of two men stabbed to death because of "insufficient evidence" and reported that a man beaten to death had died by accident. A baby beaten to death and a man fatally shot didn't make the original police tally either, the News reported.

The adjusted homicide total puts Detroit's rate at 40.7 per 100,000 residents, not the 33.8 the police previously reported, making it the deadliest among cities of more than 500,000.

The FBI defines a justifiable homicide as the killing of a felon "by a peace officer in the line of duty and the killing of a felon, during commission of a felony, by a citizen," the News said.

Under-reporting homicides raises questions about whether cases are fully investigated and about the accuracy of information used to deploy crime-fighting resources or tell how well they work, the News said.