The Tribune reports this morning that Chicago pulled ahead of New York and Los Angeles for the most murders so far this year:
Chicago, whose population is dwarfed by those cities, posted 426 killings through Tuesday, compared with 417 in New York and 302 in L.A.
At the end of 1998, Chicago made international headlines as the U.S. "murder capital" after surpassing New York's homicide totals for the first time ever. Chicago shed that dubious distinction when murders plummeted over the last decade.
It turns out, "through Tuesday" includes a person I knew, the receptionist at one of my clients' offices:
An altercation occurred between Elva Diaz, 30, and a 31-year-old man on the 700 block of South Oakley Boulevard about 7:10 p.m. {Tuesday], when the man got a weapon and stabbed her, police News Affairs Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti said.
Police said the man is believed to be her boyfriend who sometimes lived at the residence with her. He allegedly used a kitchen knife to stab her multiple times in the torso and neck in the front hallway where her body was found.
The woman's three children—two girls and a boy ages 12, 11 and 9—were inside the home but unharmed. It was not known whether they witnessed the incident, police said.
I debated including that information in this Blog, but it turns out, this is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, of which I was already aware before I got an email yesterday to disable Elva's Windows account.
My deepest sympathies to Elva's family, friends, and co-workers.