A new report published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open found that the most violent ZIP code in Chicago is even deadlier for young men between the ages of 18-29 than what U.S. soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Chicago Sun Times reports:
“You fight in an Army combat brigade, you come back and say, ‘My God, I was in the thick of it for a year, and look at the risks I faced,’ ” says Brandon del Pozo, a Brown University researcher and former New York City cop who worked with three other scholars to examine violence in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles. “In Garfield Park, these young men face those risks every single year. And the risks accumulate.”
ZIP code 60624 is bordered by Cicero Avenue on the west, Chicago Avenue on the north, Homan Avenue on the east and Roosevelt Road on the south. Garfield Park is in the middle.
Among men ages 18 to 29, the annual rate of firearm homicides in that ZIP code was 1,277 per 100,000 people in 2021 and 2022, the study found, compared with an annual death rate for U.S. troops in a heavily engaged combat brigade in Iraq of 675 per 100,000.
Even when the researchers expanded their sample to include Chicago ZIP codes ranked in the top 10% of violence, young men still faced a greater risk of dying than soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, the study found.
The study also looked at Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles. The most violent ZIP codes in Philadelphia surpassed the risk of combat death by military service members, too, but the death rate there was lower than in Chicago, the study found. New York and Los Angeles didn’t have any areas that were so deadly.
Lori Lightfoot should hang her head in shame. But she will probably just keep on dancing while her citizens are gunned down.
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