Chiraq: January murders and shooting victims up from 2016

Murders in Chicago from 2015 to 2016 increased by more than 50 percent.

But has Chiraq reached a new normal?

From ABC Chicago:

The Chicago Police Department early Wednesday released its monthly crime statistics for January 2017.

Police recorded 51 murders across the city last month, one more than January 2016, the department said. Although, the department said in a release last year that 51 people were murdered in Chicago in January 2016.

Three police districts on the city's South and West sides - the Englewood, Harrison and Austin districts - accounted for about half of the city's murders last month.

Police counted 234 shooting incidents - eight fewer than in January 2016 - with 299 victims, an increase of eight compared to the same period last year.

As it did at the end of 2016, CPD is in clearly a hurry to release murder statistics for January because the total will go up over time as wounded people lose their struggle to live and corpses are discovered. Why? Because Google searches will cough up a lower number. Police brass should be conserving their strategic thinking for more productive pursuits, such as fighting crime.