By
Michael W. Chapman | January 2, 2018 | 12:13 PM EST
A homicide victim in Chicago.
(Screenshot, YouTube)
(CNSNews.com) -- There were 664 homicides in Chicago in 2017 and, for comparison, 37 casualties in the U.S. military in its myriad operations around the globe. That's according to data from the
Chicago Tribune and from the
Department of Defense's press office.
The Chicago deaths are for the period Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2017; the military deaths are from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 22, 2017, which is the latest update on casualties by the DoD posted so far. (There may have been a few more military casualties in December.)
From the data available, it shows that Chicago suffered 17.9 times more homicides than the U.S. military worldwide -- combat and non-combat related deaths -- last year.
A U.S. soldier firing a hand-held rocket launcher in Afghanistan.
(YouTube)
For Chicago, 664 homicides -- murders by shooting or other means (not including suicides) -- averages to 1.8 homicides every day of the year.
For the U.S. military, some of the deaths were combat related and some were non-combat related. For instance, the first death, on Jan. 7, 2017, was a non-combat related incident.
Spc. Isiah L. Booker, of Cibolo, Texas, who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, died in the incident, which is under investigation.
On Jan. 29, 2017, Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, 36, of Peoria, Ill., died in "the Arabian Peninsula of Yemen, of wounds sustained in a raid against al-Qaida,"
said the DoD.
A chart from 2016 comparing casualties in Iraq (4,504) and
Afghanistan (2,384) with homicides in Chicago (7,916)
from October 2001 through Sept. 6, 2016.
(YouTube, Chicago Tribune)
