Not quite halfway through the year and the homicide rate in San Francisco is ticking up faster than it has in several years. Friday night saw the city's 35th murder of 2012, when 27-year-old Tony Harper was shot in the Bayview along with another man on the 100 block of Salinas Avenue. No arrests had been made as of Sunday.
This double-shooting, which left the other victim with life-threatening injuries after he was shot in the chest, followed on two other incidents in Visitacion Valley on Wednesday and Thursday nights that left two other people dead.
To put this in perspective, San Francisco only had 49 total homicides last year (with 50 in 2010 and 45 in 2009), and it took until September to hit 35, meaning if the current wave continues unchecked, we are on track to top 60 this year, hitting a new three-year high.
Homicides inexplicably plummeted in 2009 after two years in which the city saw 98 and 97 killings, respectively, in 2007 and 2008.
