24th Most Dangerous City

Hartford Makes Violent Crime List For 2004, Dropping From 7th

November 22, 2005
By STEVEN GOODE, Courant Staff Writer

For the second straight year, Hartford has made a list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the United States.

The city ranks 24th on the list compiled by Morgan Quinto Press, one slot better than Newark, N.J., and one position worse than Little Rock, Ark.

The list, using FBI crime statistics for 2004, contends that Camden, N.J., Detroit and St. Louis are the three most dangerous cities in the country.

Kansas-based Morgan Quinto, which has released the list since 1996, examined FBI crime statistics for 2004 for all U.S. cities with populations of more than 75,000, and then used a formula to assess points for every violent crime recorded.

Last year, Hartford ranked as the seventh most dangerous city in the nation, according to the survey. At the time, city officials said the ranking was partly due to a nursing home fire in which 16 people died, bringing the 2003 homicide total to 39. In 2004, there were 18 homicides.

"Stats are stats and they go back and forth, but we take our lumps," Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez said Monday.

Hartford police spokeswoman Nancy Mulroy said Monday that the rankings also revealed that Hartford showed the third most improvement.

"We plan to continue in that direction so that next year we're not in the top 25 at all," Mulroy said.

Perez said the drop in violent crimes could be directly related to the city's neighborhood policing plan.

"We know it's working," he said. "Moving down the list and off the list is the goal that we have."

The plan, he said, brings crime fighting and community involvement together in a joint partnership.

So far in 2005, there have been 22 homicides. Before last year, Hartford made the list one other time, in 1996, when it ranked 14th.