Louisville outranks Chicago, Philadelphia homicide rates, data shows

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - The Pegasus Institute, which tracks and studies violent crime, submitted new numbers to city officials showing Louisville’s homicide rate outpaces several other cities across the country.

The numbers were discussed in Thursday night’s Metro Council meeting.

“The Pegasus Institute indicated that for the first eight months of the year, Louisville has a higher homicide rate than Philadelphia, Chicago and Atlanta,” Councilman Anthony Piagentini (R-District 19) told Mayor Greg Fischer. “Cities that have nick names like Killadelphia and Chi-Raq.”

Fischer didn’t agree.

“In terms of the per-capita homicides,” Fischer said, “we’re not at the level of those cities and I can share that data with you as well. It is bad, ok, but I just want to make sure we are sharing the same data.”

WAVE 3 News has requested the data that Fischer mentioned he was looking at.

The Pegasus Institute shared theirs, sending it to the mayor’s office and members of Metro Council. They included the source of the data, which they said used the most up to date information. Josh Crawford of the Institute said their homicide rates were based on the number of homicides per 100,00 people.

The numbers provided show the following homicide rates:

• Louisville — 23 per 100,000
• Philadelphia — 22.7 per 100,000
• Atlanta — 21.7 per 100,000
• Chicago — 20.5 per 100,000

More data can be found at the Pegasus institute’s website here.

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