MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office (MCMEO) says Milwaukee County is on pace to record more than 300 homicides this year if trends from January continue.
Authorities say there have been 25 homicides in Milwaukee County this month. The medical examiner’s (ME) office says all but one of those were in the city of Milwaukee. The ME’s office says it took until mid-March last year to reach that number.
Three crime scenes from this weekend in Milwaukee all had one thing in common, according to police. All three shootings resulted in death.
The city’s 24 homicides this month far outpace each January from the past four years.
Data from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) shows homicides this month doubled last January’s totals and nearly quadrupled January homicides each of the three previous years.
Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission data shows there are typically fewer homicides in the colder months of January and February than any other month of the year.
According to a new Wallet Hub study of homicide trends in the 50 largest cities in America, Milwaukee ranks 11th in the largest increase per capita during the pandemic. Milwaukee comes in right behind Chicago and just ahead of Indianapolis, according to the report.
"Milwaukee narrowly missed the top ten, of course that's not a top ten that any city wants to be a part of, but some of the cities that were in the top 10 as far as this increase in homicide rates include Memphis at number 1 actually, Baltimore, Detroit so it's really all over the country,” said Jill Gonzalez with Wallet Hub.
Gonzalez says the website recently started tracking homicide rates to determine which cities have the biggest murder problems. The study uses data from the last quarter in each of the past three years to determine its findings.
"Milwaukee's interesting because it ranks 11th overall, but how we came to that overall number was that it ranks 9th right now in terms of the 9th highest homicide rate, but the 7th highest increase when we look back to 2019,” Gonzalez said.
A deadly January in Milwaukee has the county on pace for 306 homicides this year, which would shatter last year’s record of 220 county-wide.
