PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Another year, another grim milestone.
For the second year in a row, Philadelphia has reached 500 homicide victims.
Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia police’s top brass used a year-end press conference at City Hall Tuesday to tout some new strategies that they say are effective, even as the number of shooting victims remains about the same as last year.
The city says the current homicide total is about a 7% decrease from the number of homicides at this time in 2021. The overall total last year was 562 — Philadelphia’s deadliest year on record. In 2020, it was 499.
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“We understand that what we are seeing is still entirely unacceptable, and that our work is far from done,” said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
More than 2,200 people have been shot this year in Philadelphia, hovering around the same number of shooting victims at this time in 2021.
The number of guns recovered by law enforcement is expected to be a bit higher than last year.
“At this rate, we will be just under 6,300 guns recovered for the year,” said Police First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford. That total is about 300 more than 2021.
The department’s homicide solve rate has jumped a bit, from 42% last year to 48% in 2022.
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“The coordination, the formation of the shooting investigation group, the sharing of intelligence, along with forensic information and technology has helped not only the non-fatal shootings, but the homicide unit,” said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.
Police give credit to tactics like the new DNA gun violence initiative and smartphones given to some of the investigators. They’re also pulling about 100 officers from administrative spots and putting them on the streets.
“They’re being detailed to those four core places in patrol that we know we need more officers, in order to quite frankly ‘stop the bleeding,’” said Stanford.
“We not only expect visibility, but we want people out of their cars. We want people out and engaging. We want officers connecting with those in the neighborhoods,” Outlaw added.
There are currently 5,700 active officers, far less than the allotted 6,500 spots.
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Kenney continues to blame the number of illegal guns on the street.
“I used to own a gun, maybe 25 years ago. It was a six-shot revolver, which you can do a lot of damage with,” said Kenney. But when you have a clip that has 40, 50, 60 rounds in it, it’s disgraceful, should never be sold, and is only sold for the purposes of killing people.”
KYW staff contributed to this report.