Surprise! USA's safest city is..... El Paso, Texas!

[retdetsgt]

I sure wouldn't have guessed that!

El Paso named safest US city

Despite being located across the border from one of the deadliest cities in the world, El Paso is the safest large city in the United States, according to rankings released Sunday.

Though the city has been ranked in the top three each year since 1997, this is the first time El Paso has taken the top spot for having the lowest crime rate among cities of more than 500,000 population in the annual rankings by CQ Press, a publishing firm based in Washington, D.C.

Government leaders, law enforcement officials and residents were thrilled with the new ranking.
"This isn't something that mystically or magically appeared," Police Department spokesman Darrel Petry said. "This is something we have been striving for for the past 13 years. We truly attribute it to our relationship to the community - the trust."

The ranking was compiled with data from 2009 in the crime categories of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Detroit was ranked as having the highest crime rate.

El Paso Mayor John Cook said the new rank counters out-of-town misconceptions that El Paso is dangerous because of the drug cartel warfare that has engulfed neighboring Juárez for nearly three years.

National media often label the bloodshed in Mexico as "border violence." Last year, there were more than 2,640 murders in Juárez, compared with 13 homicides in El Paso. This year, there have been more than 2,700 killings in Juárez and four homicides in El Paso.

El Paso named safest US city - El Paso Times

[Citicop]

Ha. You say "Safest City," but all I hear is "Least Dangerous City."

Welcome to last place, suckas!

In other news:

WE'RE #1!! WE'RE #1!!

Original Story

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — St. Louis overtook Camden, N.J., as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009, according to a national study released Sunday.

The study by CQ Press found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year's list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004.

Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, N.Y.

The annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI. Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair.

Greg Scarbro, unit chief of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, said the FBI also discourages using the data for these types of rankings.

Kara Bowlin, spokeswoman for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, said the city actually has been getting safer over the last few years. She said crime in St. Louis has gone down each year since 2007, and so far in 2010, St. Louis crime is down 7 percent.

Erica Van Ross, spokeswoman for the St. Louis Police Department, called the rankings irresponsible.

"Crime is based on a variety of factors. It's based on geography, it's based on poverty, it's based on the economy," Van Ross said.

"That is not to say that urban cities don't have challenges, because we do," Van Ross said. "But it's that it's irresponsible to use the data in this way."

[retdetsgt]

Ha. You say "Safest City," but all I hear is "Least Dangerous City."

Welcome to last place, suckas!

In other news:

WE'RE #1!! WE'RE #1!!

Original Story

HA! I tried to rep you, but couldn't. That made my whole morning! Thanks!

[Adrenolize]

El Paso is good, just keep facing North!

It is quite an interesting thought how it could be with all the news regarding that region.

[MikeG]

But then you dig a little deeper and find that everyone that lives there is either border patrol or local law enforcement.

Only slightly tongu-in-cheek. Nogales is safe too but it's because there is so much LE in the immediate area.

[ChevySSP]

Our Troops have a pretty heavy presence along the Texas border. Additionally there's a lot of the BP folks running around all over the place.

[MikeG]

Our Troops have a pretty heavy presence along the Texas border. Additionally there's a lot of the BP folks running around all over the place.

I think the article or maybe a different one on same topic mentioned 5,000 BP agents in El Paso, a city of 500,000. That doesn't include local police and other federal agencies like DEA. It seems to me that would be a very large local department for that size of population, let alone the federal government..