Chicago’s murder rate – with gun deaths at the fore – is soaring again. Off the charts. Up another 50 percent from last year this time, and last year was already bad. Chicago police are desperate for an answer. What they’ve been trying is called “predictive policing.” Just 1,400 Chicagoans out of nearly three million are responsible for most of the violence. So, fire up an algorithm and predict who will murder. Who will be murdered. And try to stop it. This hour On Point, predictive policing in Chicago…

Detroit had a problem. Late at night, gas stations were the only businesses with open doors in many neighborhoods—and they were magnets for crime. In the first six months of 2015, about a quarter of violent crimes reported between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. happened within 500 feet of a gas station, according to the Detroit Police Department.

So it launched Project Green Light, offering round-the-clock video monitoring to city businesses, which pay all related expenses…

An argument between two Milwaukee neighbors over broken glass and garbage carts ends when a third man gets involved and fatally shoots one of the neighbors.

Milwaukee looks to Rochester, N.Y., on violence prevention

Milwaukee’s Homicide Review Commission has recommended that Milwaukee police examine how their peers in Rochester, N.Y., organize police work around the concept of preventing disputes from escalating into violence. Video by Mark Hoffman.

A 25-year-old man gets into a dispute at a bar with another man, who leaves in his truck. The truck gets stuck in the snow. The man sees the driver stranded and starts shooting, killing a third man who had stopped to help.

An online squabble about a girl escalates to in-person fighting among groups of teens watching the lakefront fireworks. One teen pulls a gun and a 14-year-old boy who had nothing to do with the original online dispute is shot in the head…

Making their weekly rounds on Kirkwood Street recently, two Wilmington police officers popped into Woody’s Deli, where thick Plexiglas and a padlocked door separate owners Manny and Shelly Patel from customers picking up lottery tickets, cigarettes and jugs of milk.

The police explained they were there to check in and asked about the neighborhood – and whether there were any concerns or information to share.

These impromptu visits are a new occurrence, said Manny Patel, and a healthy relationship is taking root with every conversation.

“If something happens,” he said, “we call the police, and they come and take care of it.”

As the Jacksonville homicide toll climbed in January, ending with the deaths of an angelic-faced 22-month-old boy and the separate killing of a 62-year-old cabbie looking for a soft landing to his life, there seemed no way to stem the blood from flowing.

The sheriff and mayor said determined efforts are underway to confront everything from random shootings to gang-fueled slaughter as others in the city shook their heads in bewilderment and disgust.

While the 14 January deaths in Jacksonville far outpaced eight in the same month last year and worried the city about what might come, the toll was lower than in August when 15 died. Three months – May, November and December – totaled 12 homicides each…

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Security camera video of a slashing attack in Chelsea this week lead to the quick arrest of a suspect and proved what a valuable tool it is to police.

London has the so-called ring of steel, and in Chicago a police partnership with private businesses allows authorities to look at their video in real time.

With security cameras on nearly every street, privacy concerns are being addressed, according to Eric Piza at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who researches the use of security cameras.

“Newark, New Jersey police department for example, working off of a national model established out of D.C. actually, consulted with the ACLU while they were in the process of deploying their public cameras,” he told WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond…

Every morning, officers across the nation get a predictive map that tells them where crime is likely to happen before it’s committed. When the mapping systems used by Detroit Police Department started showing an increase of auto theft and larceny downtown, Detroit’s 1st Precinct got together and laid a trap…