ORLANDO, Fla. - Mickey Mouse made this medium-sized city loom much larger in the public eye than its population would suggest, but this year it has been running up a big-city statistic its residents would be better off without. In less than seven months this city of about 215,000 reported 33 homicides, more than it's seen in any full year except one. It's only three shy of its 1982 record, and on pace to have one of the 15 worst per-capita murder rates in the country.
Victims include a 6-year-old apparent child abuse victim who died of severe head injuries and a 22-year-old shot in the back of the head for unknown reasons. Shortly after New Year's, a transient stabbed near a homeless camp bled to death on the same day an 18-year-old's bullet-riddled body lay on the street; two gunmen had apparently mistaken the youth for someone they were feuding with.
"People can attribute crime to failing schools, failing families. There's a bunch of sociological things you can put your finger on," said police Sgt. Rich Ring, head of Orlando's homicide investigation unit. "All we can do as police is say the biggest things are drugs and robbery, and we're going to take action to attack those issues."
FBI figures from 2005 released last month showed a 2.5 percent increase in violent crime nationwide the largest since 1991 and a 4.8 percent rise in murders.
Jacksonville, Florida's murder capital for 12 of the past 17 years, is on track to hit more than 130 homicides for the first time in more than a decade.
