Do You Feel Safe in Buffalo? [POLL]

Today’s shooting at ECMC is another grim reminder that you could be a victim of a violent crime in the City of Buffalo. Police are still looking for the alledged shooter, 49-year-old ECMC trauma surgeon Dr. Timothy Jorden of Lakeview. His motive is unclear (possibly a crime of passion), but this is another brutal story that begs the question: Do you feel safe in Buffalo?

National crime statistics indicate that Buffalo has one of the highest crime rates per capita in America, according to the website Neighborhood Scout. Your chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Buffalo is 13.88 per 1,000. The national median is 4.00 per 1,000.

Neigborhood Scout even compared Buffalo to cities of similar size, and it showed that the crime rate still fares badly. Researchers indicated that few other communities of our size have a crime rate as high, with the violent crime rate being one of the highest in the nation.

Buffalo is also the second poorest city in the United States. Could the two have a correlation? Almost definitely related is our astonishing property crime rate. In Buffalo, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 17, which is a rate of 59 per 1,000. Buffalo is also notorious for car thefts; that rate is one of the highest in the country.

You are safer walking in a New York City neighborhood than you are in Buffalo. The Big Apple has 27 crimes per square mile, while Buffalo has 187 per square mile. These numbers are staggering and has us asking the question: