The 2010 murder rate, as we've discussed, was up 13% last year overall. But disturbing new statistics from the NYPD reveal that the murder rate involving African-American victims increased last year by 31%. At the same time the percentage of white murder victims decreased by 27%.
Black victims made up 60% of the murders reported last year. Further, a third of all of the 536 murder victims in 2010 were black males between the ages of 15 and 29 (a group that represents only three percent of the city's total population).
Other interesting facts gleaned from the depressing report (which you can read below) include:
- 42% of the murders in 2010 occurred in Brooklyn.
- 17% of murder victims in 2010 were female.
- Of those women murdered 21% were killed with a firearm. The number for men was 74%. And for blacks men between 16 and 21 the figure was nearly 90%!
- More then 75% of all murder victims had prior arrests (with half of them having drug charges against them and a quarter of them either on parole or probation at the time of their death)
- 60% of female murder victims, however, had no prior arrest records.
In other crime statistic news, according to the NYPD's latest CompStat report, murders are down this year by 21% with 54 reported through the end of February.
