Cook County had a record-number of gun-related murders in 2020. | Adobe Stock
Cook County had a record-number of gun-related murders in 2020. | Adobe Stock
Chicago and Cook County last year saw the highest number of homicides ever, a report from the county's Medical Examiner's Office found.
The Medical Examiner's Office preliminary data confirmed the "grim statistic" of 970 homicides in the county last year. Of those, 875 were gun-related killings, the annual report found.
That's a record, Natalia Derevyanny, spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's Office, said, ABC 7 Eyewitness News reported.
"That is by far the highest total of gun-related homicides we have ever had," Derevyanny said in the news story. "The only time we came anywhere near that was in 1994 when we had 838 homicides due to gun violence."
| YEAR | ALL HOMICIDES | GUN-RELATED HOMICIDES |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 921 | 799 |
| 2017 | 840 | 742 |
| 2018 | 724 | 598 |
| 2019 | 675 | 583 |
| 2020 | 970 | 875 |
| Source: Cook County | ||
The office handled a record number of cases, 16,049, which far exceeds the previous record of 10,654 cases in 1977, the report found. The almost 8,192 COVID-19 infection deaths in 2020 made up more than half of the medical examiner's caseload for 2020.
"Nearly 58% of all cases handled in 2020 were African American and Latino," the report said. "These communities also make up close to half of the county's 8,192 confirmed coronavirus deaths."
The total number of homicides in 2020 was more than 40% more compared to 2019's total of 675, with people of color making up a disproportionate number of the victims, the report found.
"Blacks were the victims of 78% of homicides, and Latinos accounted for more than 16% of homicide deaths," the report said. "Eighty-nine percent of homicide deaths were male. Seventy homicide deaths were under 18; 22 were under the age of 10. The majority (722) of homicides were in the City of Chicago."
The last time Cook County homicides topped 970 was in 1996, the report said.
The Medical Examiner's Office already noticed a trend in September, when the office then announced 677 confirmed, more than the number in 2019 and putting "the County on track to exceed 900 homicide deaths in 2020."
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