Watch Yo' Back

We were doing so good there for a while with the thou shalt not kill thing here in New York. [But the number of murders climbed this year here] and in many other major U.S. cities—in some places breaking decade-old records.

The Associated Presses writes, “Among the reasons given: gangs, the easy availability of illegal guns, a disturbing tendency among young people to pull guns when they do not get the respect they demand, and, in Houston at least, an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.” First, we’d like to know who gave these reasons and, second, damn—those are some harsh words about young people (not to mention the Katrina victims).

Here, the city reported 579 homicides as of Dec. 24—nearly 10 percent more than the year before. Apparently, the increase is largely the result of an unusually high number of “reclassified homicides”—those crimes involving victims who were shot or stabbed years ago but took a while to finally die—like until now. Thirty-five of these deaths were added to this year’s final tally.