Nutter: rising murder rate not because of cuts

Philadelphia’s Mayor says it’s a trend other big cities are dealing with. He says it is not because he had to reduce police overtime for budget reasons.

The murder rate in Philadelphia is up over last year.

Mayor Michael Nutter says the uptick in the murder rate is not due to cutting back on police overtime, but people who are out of control.

“My primary concern is that there is still bad extremely bad behavior by people who don’t know how to manage their personal issues and engage other people in the public in a way that results in violence . This is about personal behavior. We should live a society where if people were better able to control themselves we wouldn’t have many of the things going on on the streets of Philadelphia in the first place.”

Mayor Nutter says the homicide rate in several other major cities is up and in Philadelphia violent crime on the whole is down compared to when he took office. He says the police department is doing the best it can to keep people as safe as possible.