Report: El Paso one of country’s safest cities
EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14) — An early review of police department crime data says that El Paso has the second-lowest murder rate in the country.
The report totaled homicides during 2017 in the country’s largest 50 cities and ranked them from safest to most dangerous.
The report showed El Paso with 2.8 murders per 100,000 people, falling second to San Diego with a rate of 2.2 murders per 100,000 people.
Both are cities that sit on the U.S.-Mexico border, but Rose Diaz of West El Paso says that contributes to the safety of the cities.
“There is a lot of security going on between the cities here and into Mexico,” she said. “So I think people kind of notice that there is a lot going on with that, which kind of turns down a lot of the crime.”
Diaz says that border cities have a lot of regulations which could explain the safety.
The report shows that El Paso’s rate includes two more murders than 2016, but still ranks the lowest in the Lone Star State.
Six Texas cities were on the list. Dallas had the highest murder rate, followed by Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, and then Austin.
Diaz was born and raised in El Paso, but moved to New York to attend college. She says that when friends come to visit the borderland, "They’re like ‘Wow, it’s so friendly here, it’s so nice here, it’s so calm.'” Diaz continued, “They realize how family-oriented El Paso is, which says a lot about El Paso that not a lot of people leave, so it has to be a comfortable place to be.”
The only New Mexico city on the list was Albuquerque, which had the 23rd-highest murder rate on the list.
The report says that overall, the national murder toll continues to hover near historic lows.
