In Los Angeles: 123
1/85Value placed on a life by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration: $3,500,000
10/85Salvadoran union activists murdered this year: 8
5/85Journalists killed in Latin America in 1984: 11
5/85Number of murders the average American child has seen on television by the age of 16: 18,000
9/85Vietnamese and Russians killed on screen in Rambo: 75
Americans: 1
Number of those days that were Wednesdays: 4
3/88Number of candidates in the Philippines’ January regional elections who were murdered during the campaign: 39
5/88Members of Colombia’s Patriotic Union party who have been murdered since it was founded in 1985: 600
Number of the party’s 87 mayoral candidates who were murdered in the six months prior to the March elections: 29
6/88Percentage of all those killed or injured in terrorist bombings worldwide last year who were Pakistani: 45
6/88Number of the 26 journalists murdered last year who were killed in the Philippines: 11
9/88Number of Salvadorans killed by death squads in 1987: 24
2/89Percentage increase, since 1987, in the number of children killed by guns in Broward County, Florida: 209
3/89Number of mayors in El Salvador who have resigned or been killed since last September: 47
5/89Total number of deaths resulting from the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since December 1987: 432
Total number of homicides in Washington, D.C., since December 1987: 512
6/89Price of a two-hour walking tour of famous murder sites in Manhattan, given by Sidewalks of New York: $10
6/90Number of people killed by stray bullets in New York City last year: 39
Percentage increase, since 1988, in the number of journalists killed worldwide: 104
8/90Number of Colombians killed by death squads last year because they were believed to be homosexuals or prostitutes: 364
11/91Rank of murder, among the most common causes of on-the-job death for female workers in the United States: 1
8/91Year Brazil’s Supreme Court first ruled that it is illegal for a man to kill his adulterous wife to defend his honor: 1991
1/92Chances that an organ transplanted in New York City last year came from a murder victim: 1 in 4
Chances today: 2 in 3
7/92Days after the Kent State killings in 1970 that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their song “Ohio”: 31
8/92Percentage change, since 1990, in the number of documented cases of journalists murdered, worldwide: +91
12/93Chances that a pedestrian killed by an automobile in the United States last year was drunk: 1 in 3
1/94Ratio of the number of New York City cabbies killed last year to the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Somalia: 6:5
11/94Percentage of Americans who believe that killing a doctor who performs abortions is a “justifiable act”: 3
11/94Chances that a juvenile-court judge favors lowering to 14 the age at which a child may be tried as an adult for murder: 2 in 5
12/94Number of Haiti’s 42 leaders since independence who have been murdered, deposed, or forced to flee the country: 30
2/94Ratio of the murder rate last year in New York City to the murder rate in Little Rock, Arkansas: 1:1
3/94Number of the 61 children murdered in Chicago last year whose mothers first gave birth as teens: 47
3/94Factor by which the murder rate in Washington, D.C., last year exceeded that of Northern Ireland: 15
6/95Number of the 272 U.S. prisoners executed since 1976 who were white men convicted of killing a black man: 1
7/95Chances that an act of terrorism committed worldwide in the last year killed an American: 1 in 80
7/95Number of suburban murder-for-hire cases filed with U.S. law enforcement agencies since 1988: 1,053
10/96Number of Hollywood movies released since last October in which a fictional U.S. president is one of the characters: 4
Number of these in which the first lady is already dead or is killed in the movie: 3
10/96Ratio of Americans who die from tobacco-related illnesses each year to the number who are murdered: 17:1
12/96Chance that an American executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty was a white who killed a black: 1 in 100
12/96Percentage change in the homicide rate in Canada since the 1976 abolition of the death penalty there: -27
12/96Number of people sentenced under California’s three-strikes law for murder or rape: 65
Number sentenced for petty theft or drug possession: 5,900
2/96Days in jail served by a California man convicted last year of killing one graffiti vandal and wounding another: 4
2/96Days after a baby was taken from a murdered woman’s womb last fall that Newt Gingrich blamed “the welfare state”: 4
6/96Number of last year’s newsweekly magazine covers featuring women who are not princesses, murderers, or models: 0
8/96Price a John Wayne Gacy web site charges for a printout of a 1976 photograph of Gacy with Rosalynn Carter: $15
Years after Gacy became an Illinois Democratic Party precinct captain that he was arrested for 33 murders: 3
1/97Years after Naomi Campbell said “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” that she posed for a 10-page fur spread in W magazine: 2
11/97Tons of flowers and other tokens deposited outside Princess Diana’s palace in the week following her death: 11,200
5/97Number of microphones installed in Redwood City, California, last August as part of its “Urban Gunfire Location System”: 8
1/98Number of Fiat owners Paris police were ordered last fall to question in connection with Princess Diana’s death: 40,000
3/98Chance that an American who believes abortion is murder also believes that it is “sometimes the best course”: 1 in 3
3/98Percentage change in murder, rape, and robbery cases in New York City since the election of Rudolph Giuliani: -44
4/98Months after Martin Luther King Jr. publicly called the U.S. the “world’s greatest purveyor of violence ” that he was killed: 2
5/99Percentage by which Jasper County, Texas, raised property taxes this year to finance the murder trial of John William King: 4.5
5/99Number of times that a white man has been executed for killing a black man in Texas since 1860: 0
7/99Number of years that the U.S. military has been using video games to train soldiers to kill: 10
7/99Average number of murders a U.S. child sees on television by the end of elementary school: 8,000
7/99Bags of potpourri that the Littleton, Colorado, fire department made from flowers placed at Columbine High School: 3,000
8/99Ratio of U.S. students killed in or near schools since last August to those killed in the 1992 school year: 1:2
8/99Chance that the murder of a student at school in the last two years was caused by beating, strangling, or knife wounds: 1 in 4
10/00Number of Colt revolvers that a Texas judge repaired during jury selection in a capital-murder trial last fall: 2
1/01Chance that the murder rate in a death-penalty state was lower in 1998 than the national average: 1 in 2
Chances that the rate in a state without the death penalty was lower than the national average: 5 in 6
10/01Number of “kills” a U.S. Air Force report anticipates achieving with space-based lasers in the future: "very many"
10/01Estimated number of mink released from a Spanish fur farm in July by unidentified activists: 13,000
11/01Year in which the French recognized the murder of two thirds of Turkey’s Armenians during World War I as “genocide”: 2001
4/01Years before a British official was killed in Athens last winter that a CIA bureau chief was killed there with the same gun: 25
5/01Percentage of the victims of politically motivated murders in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, last year who were civilians: 90
5/01Number of murders in New York City last year, per 100,000 residents: 9
12/02Percentage of the 223 trade unionists reported murdered or missing worldwide last year who worked in Colombia: 88
12/02Average number of people killed per week by a sniper operating in suburban Maryland and Virginia this fall: 3
Average number of homicides per week during the same period in Washington, D.C.: 7
3/02Number of journalists and U.S. soldiers, respectively, killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan last year: 7, 1
Number of these journalists who were American: 0
8/02Percentage of Washington, D.C., murder cases opened last year that remained unsolved by year’s end: 66
1/03Ratio of Americans killed by Timothy McVeigh and the D.C. snipers to those killed in Gulf War combat: 5:4
1/04Number of political candidates murdered during Colombia’s regional election campaigns last year: 26
12/05Average number of New Orleanians killed by gunfire each month since 2000: 16
2/05Amount that makers of the video game JFK Reloaded will pay the player who best replicates the murder of Kennedy: $100,000
2/05Price a D.C. hotel charges for its ”Presidential Privilege 2005” inauguration package, which includes a mink coat: $200,500
Estimated percentage that were subsequently foamed to death: 100
6/05Amount a Chinese online gamer made last year by selling a virtual sword he had borrowed from a friend: $850
3/07Number of the 541 members of India’s lower house of parliament who have been charged with crimes: 125
6/07Rank of New Orleans among cities with the highest per-capita murder rate last year: 1
4/08Minimum number of homicides committed in the last full seasons of the three Law & Order TV shows: 83