Homicides in Dallas by the numbers

The Dallas Police Department will report on homicides to City Council's Public Safety Committee today and some of the numbers jump right out at me:

• 67 per cent of all homicides in Dallas occur in a residence, an apartment or an apartment parking lot.
• 61 percent of all homicides are carried out with a handgun (yet we insist on making these damn things easy to obtain)
• 78 percent of all victims are between the ages of 18 and 49
• 89 percent of all victims are males
• The most fatal time of the week is Tuesday between 6 p.m. and midnight.
• 53 percent of all murders came under the jurisdiction of either the Southeast or the South Central Patrol Division.

Overall, however, the crime numbers continue to be improving. The Committee will see that violent crime is down 19.6 percent in Dallas over the last year and non-violent crimes (burglaries, auto thefts) are down 18.6 percent.