Chicago City Wire

The overall crime rate in the city dropped about 4% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2019.

The crime rate dropped despite an increase in murders and shootings this year compared to last year, according to data collected by Chicago police and reported by ABC-7. The overall rate includes burglaries, robberies, thefts and carjackings in the calculations.

Between Jan. 1 and March 31, there were 93 people were killed in Chicago, compared to the 82 murders in 2019--an increase of about 13%.

March 2020 was a different story with a 36% drop in murders – 24 – compared to the 35 murders in March 2019, police told the Chicago Sun-Times.

This March had a 7% increase in the number of shootings with 145 in March 2020 and 136 in March 2019. The month’s increase fell below the overall rate for the quarter. Chicago recorded 419 shootings in the first three months of 2020, or 22% more than the same period in 2019 when 344 shootings were reported.

Those lower levels of crime in 2019 were an anomaly, Roseanna Ander, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, told the Sun-Times. She attributed the drop to a cold winter that kept people indoors.

The March 2020 crime levels probably will get categorized as an anomaly too. The overall March 2020 crime rate fell about 10% from March 2019. This drop came in the middle of a statewide stay-at-home order issued by Gov. J.B. Pritzker that went into effect March 21. Other measures and pleas by public health officials to curb the spread of the coronavirus limited activities even before that date. As the first weekend under the order ended, 10 people had been shot and one fatally in Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Chicago had 3,427 COVID-19 cases as of April 2 with 43 deaths reported. By the afternoon of March 30, the Chicago Police Department reported 50 of its members had been infected by the coronavirus.