Donald Trump Just Told A Brazen Lie About Murder Rates In Philadelphia

The first couple days of the Donald Trump presidency have been… weird! We’re living in a post-facts universe and in an “alternative facts” universe where the leader of the free world just kinda says something and it’s accepted as fact even if it’s far from it. For example, today at a speech to GOP leaders in Philly, Trump threw out that murders in the City Of Brotherly Love are increasing. Exact words — “Here in Philadelphia murder has been steady — I mean — just terribly increasing.”

That’s not really whats up, however, as the wonderful Philly-based blog Billy Penn notes:

In 2016, according to year-end data from the police department, 277 people were killed in the city. That number is down from 2015, when 280 people were killed; and up from 2014, when 248 people were killed.

Homicides since the mid 2000s, however, are way down. In 2007, Philly had 391 murders. Go back to the 1990s, and Philadelphia’s murder rate was even higher. Five hundred people were killed in 1990. The murder rate decreased throughout the 1990s before going back up in the early 2000s and falling since then.

The 277 people killed in 2016 is the third-lowest amount since 1990 and down about 45 percent from the 1990 peak.

Let’s see a visualization of that data, eh?

Meanwhile, in Philly —

https://twitter.com/Elisa_Carla_/status/824699093020766208

Never change, City Of Brotherly Love. Go 76ers, go Flyers.