http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/us/murder-crime-fbi.html 2016-09-26 17:47:41 U.S. Murders Surged in 2015, F.B.I. Finds The 10.8 percent increase in the rate of murders from 2014 to 2015 was the largest year-to-year increase in at least 20 years, a report from the bureau said. === The number of murders in the United States increased sharply in 2015, with significant rises in several large cities, according to an The 10.8 percent increase in the rate of murders from 2014 to 2015 represented the largest year-to-year jump in at least 20 years, according to the F.B.I. data, but the murder rate remained about half the level from the 1990s, when violent crime reached a modern peak. Violent crime in the United States increased nearly 4 percent in the United States in 2015, according to the report. A large percentage of the murders occurred in major cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, that have been plagued by gun violence in some neighborhoods. Over all, violent crime in the United States rose 3.9 percent in 2015, but property crimes fell 2.6 percent, according to the F.B.I. data. The report found that there were about 1.2 million violent crimes in 2015, up from 1,153,022 in 2014. Despite the increase, 2015 had the third-lowest number of violent crimes during the last 15 years, the data showed. In 1996, a year in which cities across the nation were in the midst of a wave of violent crime, fueled partly by the crack cocaine epidemic, there were about 1.7 million violent crimes, according to the data. Police officials and criminologists say there is no single reason for the rise in homicides in large cities, but point to minor disputes that more frequently end in gun violence and turf battles over the growing — and highly profitable — heroin trade. James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, has said that the increase in violence in some urban centers is the result of police officers being less aggressive in confronting potential criminality as departments have been subjected to intense scrutiny over the last two years after fatal police shootings of African-American men and boys.