US murder increase in 2020 triples previous annual record
Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Chicago
Last year the number of homicides in the United States reached a level not seen in nearly three decades.
Across the United States local newspapers are running the same headlines: a record-breaking year in murders. The murders are mostly confined to poor areas populated by minorities, and many say that's the reason the violence is both ignored and untreated.
The coronavirus lockdowns in the United States were widely criticised for being enacted without any apparent consideration as to how it would affect their lower classes. Adding lockdowns on top of bad housing, lack of access to food, police brutality and other endemic problems put unbearable stress on those who could least afford it.
The tremendous economic suffering also decreased the revenue of America’s rampant gang activity - which many allege is aided by corrupt cops - and sparked increased fighting over market share.
But Chicago - the nation’s third-largest city - is indicative: almost half of all shootings took in place in just 7% of neighbourhoods, which are dominated by poor African- and Latino-Americans. These areas don’t just lack schools, jobs and health care, they even lack sidewalks and garbage cans because both private banks and the government refuse to make even basic investments.
But the blame can’t be put all on the corona: 75 of the 100 largest cities in the country saw an increase in fatal shootings in the first quarter of 2020. American poverty and instability have soared since the 2008 economic crisis, but America’s disregard for the poor of all colours goes back much further.
The highest year-to-year increase in murders ever recorded across urban America was 13%. 2020 saw an estimated increase of nearly 40%.
The decision of the nation’s political elites to not release a second household stimulus until after the presidential election is being widely blamed for increasing the unstable conditions which inevitably provoked the record tragedies of 2020.
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