Philly crime declines, officials look ahead
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Violent crime in Philadelphia continues to decline. Numbers released today show 305 people were killed in 2009. That's a more than 22% drop from 2007, when Mayor Michael Nutter took office and brought in a new police commissioner.
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Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey says he knows there's more to do in 2010.
Ramsey: We're gonna focus on guns, we're gonna focus on gangs, we're gonna focus on violent crime in general but not lose site of property crime.
The drop in property crime includes a 37% decrease in car theft from 2007 to 2009. Robberies, rapes, burglaries and assaults are all down.
But Commissioner Ramsey says one area for improvement is domestic violence murders — up 67% since the year before. Ramsey says the department plans to use data on previous domestic violence calls to try to intervene in potentially deadly cases. Both the decrease in violent crime overall, and the increase in domestic violence mirrors a nationwide trend.
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