Atlanta’s 2007 crime wave

In Atlanta, “Every Day Is An Opening Day.”

Unfortunately, the openings are increasingly bullet holes.

Atlanta’s murder rate for the first half of 2007 was 21 percent higher than during the same period in 2006, and 46 percent higher than the same period in 2005.

According to statistics I gathered from eight separate reports on the Atlanta Police Department website, there were 51 murders in the city during first six months of 2007. That number may be higher because the APD’s crime map appears to record multiple homicides as single murders. The murder of two teens at Greenbriar Mall last month is noted on the APD crime map as one murder.

During the same period in 2006 and 2005, there were 42 and 35 murders, respectively. Last year, Atlanta had the fourth-highest murder rate in the nation.

Murder isn’t the only serious crime on the rise in the city.

According to the APD’s first-quarter report, robbery was up 16 percent, burglary, 13 percent; rape, 9 percent; and theft from coin-operated machines was up 23 percent.

Not even our candy and soda are safe.

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