CITY'S MURDER COUNT DIVES

Chicago is on pace to have its lowest murder count since 1967, thanks in
part to a 30 percent drop in gang-related slayings through November, police
officials said Monday.

Through Monday, the city's murder tally stood at 632, a 9 percent drop over
the same period last year and a far cry from 1992, when the count peaked at
943 murders.

If 15 or more murders don't occur between now and New Year's Day, Chicago's
murder count will hit a 32-year low. The city had 647 murders in 1968 and
552 in 1967.

The city's overall crime rate has dropped about 10 percent through
November, and crime is down in every one of the city's 25 police districts,
said police Supt. Terry Hillard.

At a press conference Monday, Hillard attributed the drop to a clampdown on
gangs, guns and drugs, and the growth of the six-year-old Chicago
Alternative Policing Strategy program, which teams neighborhood residents
with police to fight crime.

The city this year has taken a new tack in its fight against drug-dealing
gangs by building federal-style conspiracy cases against them. Four
investigations have led to the arrests of 105 gang members and the seizing
of more than 1,500 kilograms of cocaine and 72 guns.

"[If] they are locking up gang members and confiscating weapons and doing
something about drug use, all of those things affect quality of life and
may indirectly affect the rate of homicides," said Arthur Lurigio, head of
the criminal justice department at Loyola University.

While the city's 703 murders last year was a 10-year low, there were still
more murders here than in New York or any other city in the nation for the
first time.

This year, however, Chicago is on track to have fewer murders than New
York, which recorded 645 through Dec. 19, a 7.6 percent increase over the
same period last year, a New York Police Department spokesman said.

Hillard pointed to a block at Avers and Thomas on the West Side as an
example of how community policing is making inroads--that block saw a 90
percent drop in crime this year, and police arrested 28 members of the Vice
Lords street gang during a sting there.

For the first 11 months of 1998, there were 259 reports of crimes on the
block last year, compared to 27 this year.

"We had the courage to stand up for what we believe in," said Julia Bonner,
a block leader in the CAPS program.

Hillard also used the press conference to blast the Illinois General
Assembly for failing to restore felony penalties for unlawful use of a
weapon in a special session earlier this month.

"You take away the guns, you cut down on crime," Hillard said. "It's that
simple."