Love Waxing Cold – Lawlessness – Violence – Homicide – School Shootings

Jesus indicated that one (of many) signs of the end times or the end of the age grace would be that love for one another would grow cold. Matthew 24:12, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” This can also be interpreted that lawlessness will abound. This includes violence, murder, terrorism, shootings, abortion, sexual attacks, knife attacks, car/van attacks, chemical attacks and other similar acts of destructive and evil behavior. Yes, these things have occurred in time past. But consider the frequency, intensity and devastation of these types of attacks and mass school shootings. They are like birth pangs in frequency and intensity. This is just one part of the CONVERGENCE or CONVERGING of signs.

The most dangerous cities in the US and Central America. 5 cities are in both. Love waxing cold in the Western Hemisphere.

7:39 a.m. EDT July 29, 2019. USA Today.

Wall St. reviewed the world’s 50 most dangerous cities – the ones with the highest murder rates – as reported by El Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal (The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice), a Mexico City-based advocacy group.

United States cities in the ‘top 50’.

50. New Orleans, USA
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 37
• Homicides in 2018: 145
• Population: 393,292

The Big Easy’s homicide rate has declined in 2018, the second consecutive year of decline and nearly knocking the city off the list of the world’s 50 most dangerous for the first time since records for this annual report started in 2013. That year, New Orleans was the country’s second most dangerous city after Detroit. The city is now the fifth most dangerous in the United States, a list that includes San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico

46. Detroit, USA
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 39
• Homicides in 2018: 261
• Population: 673,104

Detroit routinely ranks among the four most dangerous U.S. cities, along with New Orleans, Baltimore and St. Louis. (San Juan, the capital of the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, joined this list in 2017.) The city’s homicide rate was almost unchanged in 2018, at 39 per 100,000 residents, compared to the year before, but because of improvements in New Orleans, Detroit’s U.S. ranking fell to fourth from fifth place in 2017.

40. San Juan, USA
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 42
• Homicides in 2018: 143
• Population: 337,288

Struggling with an economic crisis in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017 that ravaged the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, San Juan joined the list of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world in 2017. (There was a spike in murders in the island after the storm struck.) The homicide rate declined modestly in 2018, from 48.7 per 100,000 residents in 2017, but San Juan continues to be the U.S. city with the third highest homicide rate

23. Baltimore, USA
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 51
• Homicides in 2018: 309
• Population: 611,648

Despite a small drop in the murder rate in 2018, Baltimore remains the second most dangerous U.S. city, according to The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice ranking. The city, however, dropped slightly on the global list from 21st place. Baltimore’s murder rate fell slightly in 2018 compared to its record high rate in 2017.

15. St. Louis, USA
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 61
• Homicides in 2018: 187
• Population: 308,626

Chicago is often derided for its violent crime, but St. Louis has been the murder capital of the United States since 2014, while Chicago has never made this list. The homicide rate in St. Louis declined in 2018 to 61 murders per 100,000 residents from nearly 66 per 100,000 in 2017. The last time the rate was below 50 was in 2013 (the first year of this annual report), when the murder rate was 34 per 100,000 and St. Louis as the fourth most dangerous U.S. city.

Central American cities in the ‘top 50.’

43. Guatemala City, Guatemala
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 44
• Homicides in 2018: 1,411
• Population: 3,226,974

Like the two other Central American countries of the Northern Triangle, residents of Guatemala’s capital city are experiencing lower rates of homicide compared to 2017 when the rate hit a four-year high of 53.5 per 100,000 residents. The city’s rank on this list dropped significantly since 2013, when it ranked as eighth most dangerous with a murder rate that topped 68 per 100,000 residents.

.

39. Distrito Central, Honduras
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 43
• Homicides in 2018: 538
• Population: 1,242,397

The homicide rate in the Distrito Central of Honduras, which includes the capital Tegucigalpa and its sister city Comayagüela, has dropped significantly in 2018 from a recent peak of slightly over 85 murders per 100,000 residents in 2016. Honduras has been the most violent-wreaked of the three Northern Triangle countries of Central America, which include neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador. Virulent urban gang violence has spurred an exodus of migrants in the region hoping to seek refuge in the United States.

33. San Pedro Sula, Honduras
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 47
• Homicides in 2018: 363
• Population: 777,877

Just a few years ago, San Pedro Sula in the north of this tiny Central American country was the world’s murder capital. The homicide rate, which topped a staggering 187 murders per 100,000 residents in 2013, remained solidly above 100 until 2017. Since then, the murder rate has dropped by well more than half, to 47 per 100,000 in 2018.

24. San Salvador, El Salvador
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 50
• Homicides in 2018: 906
• Population: 1,800,336

El Salvador is one of the three Northern Triangle countries in Central America that have been the source of migrants fleeing high rates of violent crime. San Salvador’s homicide rate dropped last year to 50 murders per 100,000 residents, less than half the rate of nearly 109 per 100,00 in 2015, when the city ranked as having the third highest murder rate in the world.

19. Kingston, Jamaica
• Homicides per 100,000 in 2018: 54
• Homicides in 2018: 639
• Population: 1,180,771

Local organized crime drove the homicide rate in Jamaica’s capital city to a recent peak of nearly 60 murders per 100,000 residents in 2017. That rate has declined to 54 per 100,000 in 2018, pushing Kingston’s ranking up from 16th to 19th in this annual list of the world’s 50 most dangerous cities that started with 2013 data.