Boy killed for his bike

[Barklessdog]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1011139,CST-NWS-teenshot18.article

It was the first day of summer vacation -- cool, not too hot -- a perfect day to hang out with buddies on the block and flirt with the girls.

That's what 14-year-old Ulysses Simmons was doing Monday, friends said, when a white car circled the South Side block for the third time, disappearing around the corner.

Minutes later, two of three teens who had been riding in the suspicious car ran up through the alley near 92nd and Langley and opened fire on the group of about 10 youths.

As they scattered, one 14-year-old boy was shot in the shoulder. Friends said Ulysses, who had been sitting on his beloved bike talking to one of the girls, fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.

When will this killing stop?" she asked. "It needs to stop."

Her grandson was the 27th CPS student slain since last fall.

He was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to the abdomen at 1 a.m. Tuesday at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital.

[uwe]

What made Chicago become the death capital of the US? I'm curious. That you can combat street crime efficiently and cut the death rate was shown in New York City which is today not what it used to be in the late eighties. So what's wrong with Chicago?

Uwe

[Barklessdog]

It's not just Chicago, Phildelphia has seen it's murder climb last year.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/11/youth.violence/index.html

"If you're getting a little money, you're going to get shot -- someone wants that. Any way you look at it, it's just a bad situation."

Andre is caught up in the tough life on the streets of Philadelphia's Southside neighborhood. At 13, he watched his brother get shot and killed in front of his home by another teenager. By 15, he was wanted for two counts of armed robbery and theft.

"It makes you feel stronger, powerful, a bigger man," he said of having a gun. "You even walk differently when you have a gun on you."

Chicago was not even listed in the most dangerous cities in the US

http://money.aol.com/mortgage/dangerous-cities

Top on our list? Detroit. The Motor City experienced 418 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2006. That's 47.3 murders per every 100,000 residents. Detroit also ranked high for violent crime (No. 2), robbery (No. 4) and forcible rape (No. 12).

http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/08/murder-city-danger-forbeslife-cx_de_1108murder.html

Safety In Numbers
Surprisingly, the country's biggest cities aren't usually the most dangerous. Out of the 10 most murderous cities in America, only one, Philadelphia, has a population over 1 million. And America's biggest metro, New York City, is also one of its safest; with a murder rate of 7.3 per 100,000 people, it comes in at No. 50 on a list of the 72 American cities with a population over 250,000.

It's important to note that even though some cities may have comparatively high murder rates, crime is, on the average, down in the U.S over the last two decades. Over that period, the homicide rate in the U.S. has fallen from a 1991 peak of 9.8 murders per 100,000 people, to just 5.7 in 2006.

[Barklessdog]

Chicago is not even listed on lists.

It seems a lot of cities have crime like this everyday and they only report local crime for the most part.