Monday 20 June 2022 10:55 PM Five major cities are on track to surpass their 2021 homicide totals trends now

Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Milwaukee are on track to surpass their already-soaring homicide rates from last year. 

Last year, the FBI warned that homicides in the US rose nearly 30 percent from 2020 and overall violent crime rose for the first time in four years. 

The stunning trend in homicides has continued this year. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the homicide rate leaped 24.7 percent from the year-to-date compared to the same period last year.  

Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia, have seen a 13.4 percent and 13.3 percent increase in homicides, respectively, Fox first reported. 

Meanwhile, law enforcement in Baltimore, Maryland, has reported 7.7 percent more homicides this year. Los Angeles tailgates the Charm City with a 7.3 percent spike.  

The surge in homicides, which has not shown signs of slowing down anytime soon, has been attributed,  in part, to COVID-19 hardships.  

The rising violence has also been blamed on liberal cities' lax bail policies and their support for the defund the police movement after protests over policing erupted nationally in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis in 2020. 

People are being killed in Los Angeles at a faster pace than in 2021, when homicides hit a 15-year high. 

So far this year, LA has seen 162 slayings - 11 more than the same time last year.

Assaults are also up nearly 5 percent from 2021, with police so far recording 8,779 incidents.

Last week, a now-dead gunman killed two Southern California police officers in a motel shootout.

Justin William Flores, 35, was on probation for a prior gun charge at the time he committed the killings.  The illegal handgun sentence was handed to Flores in 2021, as part of a lenient plea deal made possible by lax prosecution laws from DA George Gascon.  

Flores killed himself during the confrontation with the cops, which transpired after officers responded to a call of a stabbing at the Scenic Motel in El Monte, a small suburb within Los Angeles County. 

Last year, Flores - already on parole, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, a felony charge that law enforcement sources said should have sent him back to prison for a minimum of three years.

However, because of Gascon - who was sworn into office in late 2020 as part of a wave of woke prosecutors who vowed to seek alternatives to incarceration - he received the bare minimum sentence of two years probation, and 20 days of jail time. 

The case has subsequently sparked outrage, with many criticizing Gascon.