For every 3,000 people who lived in Gary during the first half of 2007, one fell victim to homicide, federal statistics released Monday show.
Although killings in Chicago and across the Midwest dropped last year, Gary found its 2007 homicide rate increasing to levels that Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said were alarming but not surprising.
"Gary has been targeted by the drug cartels," Carter said Monday. "People drive from Valparaiso to Gary to buy dope, but they won't come into Gary to buy a pair of shoes."
On Monday, the FBI released a preliminary version of its 2007 Uniform Crime Report covering violent crimes from January to June 2007. The report covers cities with populations of 100,000 or more, including Gary, Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne and South Bend.
In terms of all types of violent crime, the statistics show Gary had the same per capita crime rate as South Bend in the first half of last year, each with about 34 violent crimes for every 10,000 residents. Indianapolis almost doubled Gary's per-capita violent crime rate, with 60 crimes for every 10,000 residents.
But Gary stood out in the category of homicide.
The city of 99,369 recorded 34 homicides between January and June 2007, the statistics show. That's a rate of 3.4 killings per 10,000 people -- nearly five times the per-capita rate of the other four Indiana cities listed in the report.
Gary Mayor Rudy Clay didn't return a call seeking comment Monday. Clay said repeatedly last year the city is nonviolent and that the homicides were mostly the results of domestic situations over which the police have no control.
But Carter said the numbers tell a different story.
Most of Gary's murders are drug-related, Carter said, because Gary offers drug cartels an ideal demographic situation, including scores of under-educated young people without full-time jobs who live in neighborhoods with lots of vacant houses.
The prosecutor also said Gary's parents bear some responsibility because they're not helping their children get an education that could provide an escape from the cycle of violence.
"Society wants to blame police and the court system for something that the economic and social systems created," Carter said.
