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APPHILADELPHIA (AP) - Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants.
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Philadelphia is losing one resident a day to violence, recording 196 homicides through the third week of June. That is slightly ahead of the total at this point in 2006, a year that ended with 406 homicides, the most in almost a decade. On the first day of summer alone, six people were killed in Philadelphia in three street shootings.
In Newark, the homicide toll has soared 50 percent in four years, from 68 in 2002 to 106 in 2006. Baltimore had 140 slayings as of June 10, up from 122 the same time last year. Boston had 75 homicides in 2005, a 10-year high, and 75 in 2006. So far this year, there have been at least 30 slayings
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The vast majority of U.S. homicides - nearly 90 percent in Newark last year - involve guns. And they are more powerful than ever. The weapons of choice are semiautomatics that can spray dozens of bullets within seconds.
"We're seeing 40, 45 shots," said Richard Ross, Philadelphia's deputy police commissioner. In one recent killing, "I think they fired 20 shots into him. That's remarkable." He added: "For some of these young people, it's the glamour of it. They want to carry on their block."
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