Philadelphia records most homicides in over a decade

Philadelphia has seen more homicides this year than in any other in over a decade, as a particularly violent summer morphed into a deadly fall.

Police data show that there have been 333 homicides in the city as of Sunday, an 11 percent increase over the same period last year.

Even with two weeks left in 2018, this year's total is higher than any year's since 2007, which ended up with 391 homicides.

FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2018, file photo, a police officer stands guard outside a home where a woman was murdered on Woodstock Street in Philadelphia. Philadelphia's homicide rate is the highest in over a decade, as a particularly violent summer morphed into a deadly fall and the mayor declared gun violence a public health emergency. (AP PhotoMatt Rourke, File)

New York and Los Angeles, with populations much larger than Philadelphia's 1.5 million, have had fewer homicides this year. As of Dec. 9, New York City had seen 273 homicides; as of Dec. 8, Los Angeles had 243.

In September, Mayor Jim Kenney ordered his staff to come up with strategies to tackle the crisis like a public health emergency.

Overwhelmingly, the victims tend to be young, black men in neighborhoods struggling with poverty, city data show. Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the country.

Vanessa Garrett Harley, Deputy Managing Director for Criminal Justice and Public Safety, speaks with members of the media in Philadelphia, Monday, Dec. 17, 2018. Philadelphia's homicide rate is the highest in over a decade, as a particularly violent summer morphed into a deadly fall and the mayor declared gun violence a public health emergency. (AP PhotoMatt Rourke)

In a city where near daily shootings are sometimes met with apathy, the spasms of violence this year were so remarkable that they captured the public's attention.

Among the most high-profile cases was the death of a high school track star who was about to start Penn State and was shot and killed when he confronted two teens trying to break into his family's house in August. In another, four people were shot in the head in the basement of a home in November. On Friday, a new mom was shot and killed inside her house while her 5-day-old daughter slept in a crib steps away.

The police department declined to comment Monday.

Vanessa Garrett Harley, who heads up the city's criminal justice and public safety agency, is leading the group tasked with developing a plan to tackle the violence. They're starting with an audit of community-based violence prevention programs around the city, figuring out which programs are working and which aren't. They've also held meetings in communities struggling with gun violence to get input from residents on the front lines, she said.

Their action plan should be ready next month, she said.

"Just to hear an older woman say she's scared to come off her porch, it sickens me," said Shondell Revell, a city employee who is helping develop the strategic plan. "How do we give her that assurance that the city is there for her and we're dealing with the issues that are happening?"

NEW YORK (AP) — A coalition of 21 attorneys general from Democratic-led states sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director, Russell Vought, on Monday, asserting that the White House's argument to withhold funds from the consumer protection agency is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit has to do with the Trump administration's argument that the CFPB can only be funded by the Federal Reserve's profits. The Federal Reserve has been running a loss since 2022, a side effect of the Fed raising interest rates sharply to combat inflation, because it holds bonds that pay low interest from the pandemic but it needs to pay out higher amounts of interest to the banks that hold their deposits with the bank.

The White House has argued for several months that the CFPB cannot lawfully draw funds to fund its operations from the Fed if the Fed does not have “combined earnings” to allocate to the bureau. Without additional funds, the CFPB is expected to deplete its operating funds completely in January.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, seeks to force the Trump administration to fund the CFPB.

"We’re asking the court to order the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to seek available funding and do its job,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference.

The phrase “combined earnings” is found in the text of the Dodd-Frank Act, the law that created the CFPB more than a decade ago. Legislators and policymakers from the time Dodd-Frank was crafted have argued that the phrase “combined earnings” was not meant to infer the Fed needed to make an actual profit to fund the CFPB. The White House's interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act is being litigated in a separate lawsuit filed by the CFPB employees' union against Vought.

The Democratic AGs argue that the CFPB was lawfully created by Congress and the White House cannot pick and choose which parts of the government it wishes to fund or not. Further, the CFPB is required to provide consumer complaint information to the individual states to stop bad actors, and if the CFPB is not operating, it cannot meet its statutory requirements.

“Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will make it harder to stop predatory lenders, scammers, and other bad actors from taking advantage of New Yorkers,” said Attorney General Letitia James of New York.

A spokeswoman for Vought did not respond to an email for comment.

AP Reporter Morgan Lee contributed to this report from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Federal Reserve Chair logo appears on a podium at the Federal Reserve, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)