In a sombre milestone on Friday, Philadelphia recorded 100 homicides for the year to far, the city’s first time doing so this early in a calendar year since at least 2007, according to the police commissioner and municipal data. The city has reported 100 murders every year since 2007.
The Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Agency (PPD) revealed the astonishing amount on Friday morning, writing in a blog post that the department was “devastated.”
As a further incentive, the city’s chief officer announced that the department is offering a prize of up to $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of a murder suspect.
PPD’s website had not been updated since 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, and as a result, it did not reflect the change made on Friday morning.
However, according to police figures, 92 individuals had been murdered so far this year as of March 10, 2021, compared to the 99 persons who had been reported deceased as of Thursday night.
As of March 11, the city has not recorded 100 homicides since at least 2007, which is the most recent year for which publicly accessible police department data are available. “It’s never occurred before,” said a long-time police specialist in the Philadelphia region, according to Fox News Digital.
“The number of murders in this city in 2021 was the most in the city’s history,” he said, adding that the city is already 8 percent ahead of where it was the previous year.
According to records, the Philadelphia Police Department recorded 562 homicides in the whole year 2021, an increase of 63 over the previous year.
He said that Philadelphia’s murder rates are already on par with those of other major cities, such as Chicago and New York City — if not outperforming them in certain cases. Philadelphia has a population of around 1.6 million people. Chicago has a population of more than 2.7 million people and, as of March 6, there have been 96 murders recorded this year in the city. Since the beginning of the year, New York City has recorded 67 homicides. As of March 6, the city has a population of around 8.8 million people.
In the expert’s opinion, “the raw figures don’t tell the full storey, but when you take those numbers and put them in context of Philadelphia’s population compared to the three biggest cities in America, it really demonstrates the extent of the issue or how bad it is in Philadelphia.”
