Mayor Kenney, Police Stats Dispute And Debunk Trump's Murder Rate Claim

President Donald Trump claimed Philadelphia's murder rate is "terribly increasing" when speaking to congressional Republicans at the GOP 2017 retreat in Philadelphia Thursday. But city officials and police data show that claim is not true.

In his speech, Trump said Philadelphia's murder rate "has been steady, I mean just terribly increasing."

However, data on the city's murder rate provided by Philadelphia Police shows no significant upward trend - and in fact there has been an overall decline since 2007.

Back in 2007, 391 people were murdered in the city, according to police data. In 2016, 280 people were murdered.

"President Trump’s false statements today were an insult to the men and women of the Philadelphia police force—the very same men and women who are working long hours today to ensure his safety," Mayor Jim Kenney said in statement Thursday afternoon. "Our homicides are, in fact, slowly declining, and while we are not satisfied with even our current numbers, we are handicapped by Republican refusal to enact any kind of common sense gun control and by their obsession with turning our police officers into ICE agents - which will prevent immigrants from coming forward to report crimes or provide critical witnesses statements that can put dangerous criminals behind bars."

The police data shows the following trends in murders:

• 2007 – 391
• 2008 – 331
• 2009 – 302
• 2010 – 306
• 2011 – 326
• 2012 – 331
• 2013 – 246
• 2014 – 248
• 2015 – 280
• 2016 – 277

While the numbers have increased from 2013 to 2015 by varying degrees, those numbers are a far cry from the city's nearly 400 murders in 2007.

"Our police officers have worked tirelessly and with great personal sacrifice to get Philadelphia’s crime rate down to its lowest point in forty years, while also successfully implementing reforms to strengthen police-community relations and uphold the rights of all our residents," Kenney said in the statement.

Image via Renee Schiavone