Thursday 15 August 2013

Daily sees "slight" fall in murders in Bogotá for arms ban

The ban on carrying arms in Bogotá, imposed in recent months by the city government and the army, is said to have had an "insufficient" effect on reducing violent crimes, according to the newspaper ADN. The daily is freely distributed on the streets; it was citing figures from the police and state coroners. The daily's website reported on 14 August that there were 708 homicides in Bogotá from 1 January to the end of July 2013, five per cent less than the 743 homicides counted for that period in 2012; 453 of those killed in the period cited in 2013 were shot dead, evidently in spite of the existing arms ban. The ban is regularly renewed, and the capital's police chief Luis Martínez Guzmán said it was best it be maintained. Police confiscated 1,473 "illegal weapons" in the capital in the first seven months of 2013, ADN reported.