SatStats (crime)

On this day:

193
Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus.
1802
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second asteroid known to man
1871
The Paris Commune is formally established in Paris.
1939
Spanish Civil War: Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquers Madrid.
1941
World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan – in the Mediterranean Sea, British Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham leads the Royal Navy in the destruction of three major Italian heavy cruisers and two destroyers.
1969
The McGill français movement protest occurs, the second largest protest in Montreal’s history with 10,000 trade unionists, leftist activists, CEGEP students, and even some McGill students at McGill’s Roddick Gates. This led to the majority of the protesters getting arrested.
1979
Operators of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, fail to recognize that a relief valve in the primary coolant system has stuck open following an unexpected shutdown. As a result, enough coolant drains out of the system to allow the core to overheat and partially melt down.

***

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.--Voltaire

***

The Commune of Paris was an insurrection against the French government from March 18 to May 28, 1871, following France’s defeat in the Franco-German War, including the Siege of Paris by the Germans and the collapse of Napoleon III’s Second Empire (1852–70).

***

Previous research has suggested that dogs likely diverged from wolves more than 15,000 years ago, during the Palaeolithic period.

Domesticated dogs were already widely distributed across western Eurasia by at least 14,300 years ago, according to a recent paper. Dogs were the only domesticated animal present in Europe before agriculture, the researchers said.

***

SatStats (crime)

In 2023, during the Biden administration, the FBI made unmarked and unprecedented revisions to murder data for the prior two decades. These changes increased annual murder estimates during prior presidencies by as much as 7% and decreased estimates during Biden’s presidency by as much as 5%.
As a result of the FBI’s 2023 revisions and other factors, the number of homicides recorded on death certificates that were not reported as murders by the FBI rose from a low of 16 killings in 2003 to an average of 3,711 killings per year during Biden’s presidency

*

If the U.S. murder rate remains at the same level as in 2023, one in every 200 people in the nation will ultimately be murdered.

*

In 1964, about 16% of recorded aggravated assaults with a firearm resulted in death. By 1999, this figure fell to about 5%. 

     Per a 2002 paper in the journal Homicide Studies: The “principal explanation” for this “downward trend in lethality” is improvements in medical technology and related medical support services.

*

In the United States, the portion of murders in which a suspect is identified and acted upon by the criminal justice system declined from 92% in 1960 to 58% in 2023.
From 1965 to 2022, roughly 337,601 murders were committed in the U.S. that were still unsolved as of 2022.

*

In 2023, the police chief of Washington DC reported that “the average homicide suspect has been arrested 11 times prior to them committing a homicide.

*

Among suspects arrested for homicide during 2019 in Baltimore, Maryland:

     -81% had prior criminal records.
     -52% were previously arrested for violent crimes.
     -27% were on parole and probation.
     -They were previously arrested an average of eight times.

*

A Bureau of Justice Statistics study based on crime data from 1974 to 1985 found that:
     -42% of Americans will be the victim of a completed violent crime in the course of their lives.
     -83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime.
     -52% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime more than once.