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A terror unlike the usual terrors

This Just In

Death-by-bullet tally hits 50

The murder of 18-year-old Jonathan Calvin Jacques early Sunday morning was Boston’s 50th shooting homicide of 2006, the highest total in more than a decade — and there’s still a month left in the year. Last year, 48 of the city’s 75 murder victims were killed by guns; in 2004, it was 49 out of 64.

As a frame of reference, Boston has had 68 total murders this year; Jacques was the 35th victim under 25, and the 16th teenager to be killed.

Earlier in November, a South End bouncer became the city’s 342nd shooting victim of 2006 (a tally that includes both fatal and non-fatal shootings), surpassing last year’s total — which was, by a large margin, then the highest shooting rate since 1995. Now, it looks as if we could exceed the 356 shootings of that year as early as this weekend. And the 416 victims of 1994 may sadly be surpassed by year’s end.

The Boston Police Department (BPD) has been boasting lately of the slowed shooting rate during the past few months. Two weeks ago, for instance, District Attorney Dan Conley crowed about the county’s “gun court.” But while there has been improvement, the figures below show that it’s far from good enough.

As the Phoenix has reported previously, Boston averaged a shooting victim every other day from 1996 through 2004. Since mid 2005, the rate has been just more than one per day. For the past two months, it’s been a little less than one.

Meanwhile, the BPD’s homicide-arrest rate is not improving. Just 32 percent of this year’s murders have resulted in an arrest to date, barely half the average for large cities. And though we were told that Conley’s team was making slow but steady progress, nearly a year later, the arrest rate for last year’s murders has reached only 35 percent.

Plus, it tends to be the shootings that are left unsolved — just 10 of the 50 shooting homicides this year have led to an arrest.

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