With the fatal beating of a student Thursday on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the city has seen at least 47 violent deaths so far this month, data show. Two of those deaths — teens shot to death while robbing a liquor store — are not being classified as murders because the shooting was considered justified by police.
That so far brings the official total of deaths this year classified as murders by the department to 45, matching the total for all of January in 2002. Monthly breakdowns of violent crime in the city are readily available only to 2001.
With three days left in the month, including a weekend of mild weather, the number of murders may rise well above 45.
Since 2001, murders have reached 40 or more four other times: 45 in 2002, 42 in 2001, 41 in 2013 and 40 in 2012, according to data provided by police. More than 500 people were killed in 2012, but the number of murders dropped significantly the next year.
Police departments throughout the country count what they consider to be murders for the purpose of submitting crime data for the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. Although any intentional killing of one person by another is considered a homicide, and courts traditionally determine whether a homicide is a murder, the FBI and most police departments classify intentional, unlawful killings as murders for the purpose of compiling statistics.
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