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Black Chicagoans 18 Times More Likely To Be Killed Than White Ones: Study

By Tanveer Ali | July 26, 2016 10:17am
 Police investigate a fatal shooting near the intersection of West 66th Street and South Claremont Avenue. (August 5, 2013)
Police investigate a fatal shooting near the intersection of West 66th Street and South Claremont Avenue. (August 5, 2013)
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DNAinfo/Devlin Brown

CHICAGO — The homicide rate has jumped considerably for black Chicagoans over the past decade. It's also dropped significantly for white Chicagoans.

In 2005, black Chicagoans were eight times as likely as whites to be killed by someone else. In 2015, blacks were 18 times more likely to be killed than whites.

That's according to a new report released by the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System at Lurie Children's Hospital.

RELATED: Murder in Chicago: The Human Toll 

The overall homicide rate between those two years is up slightly: 17.32 people per 100,000 people were killed in 2005 while 18.81 people per 100,000 were killed in 2015.

The homicide rate for blacks in Chicago jumped by 28.7 percent over those ten years, from 36.14 per 100,000 to 46.52 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the homicide rate for whites dropped 40 percent.

The study — which analyzed data from 2005, 2010 and 2015 — also found that the female homicide rate is dropping, the male homicide rate is increasing and the share of shooting deaths is growing.

"At each time point, firearms were the most frequently used weapon type," lead investigator Maryann Mason wrote. "There was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of homicides due to firearms at each time point."

Here's the report:

Based on Chicago Police Department data, there were 453 murders in 2005 compared with 481 in 2015. So far this year, 369 people have been murdered according to DNAinfo records. That's on pace to exceed 2015 totals.

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