Homicides Still Down

So are we working smarter? Or harder? Because we're doing it shorthanded - even the FOP backs up that contention:

• Homicides continued to decline this year in Chicago through September, including homicides of school-age children, according to Police Department statistics.
  
  Homicides fell 11 percent through the first nine months of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago, department officials said. Through Sept. 30, there had been 348 slayings, down from 393 for the same period last year.
  
  Through Sept. 15, killings of youths between the ages of 6 and 18 declined by 14.5 percent compared with the same period last year. There were 47 homicides in that time period in 2008 and 55 total in 2008.

Much of this decrease is attributable to medical advances. We're still hearing that shootings are up. Significantly up. Someone has those numbers. And guns taken off the street? That's up, too over last year, so the guns are still there.

Imagine how much better it might be if we were up to full strength.