Police say Chicago homicides climbed dramatically in January

Authorities said “shots were exchanged” with police and a weapon was recovered.

In a written statement issued by Chicago Police News Affairs, officers received multiple 911 calls of a “person with a gun/home invasion”.

Even more alarming, the number of shootings in January jumped almost 60 percent from the first month of 2012, the previous year in which homicides rose above 500.

The year did not get off to a good start for Chicago police, with murders in January at the highest level in 16 years, and shootings more than double what they were at this point last year.

Chicago police say an officer involved in a shooting that left one dead will be shifted to administrative duties.

The nation’s third largest city recorded 51 homicides in January, the highest toll for the month since at least 2000.

Chicago routinely records more homicides annually than any other American city, but the grim January violence toll marks a shocking spike in violence in a city that recorded 29 murders for the month of January a year ago and 20 murders for the month in 2014.

“We can’t put our finger on” specific reasons for the increase, the city’s interim police superintendent, John Escalante, said. Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with murder in the shooting, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was sacked and the U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation.

But whether the release of the video has contributed to the dramatic increase in homicides and shooting incidents in January remains unclear. The new contact cards also require police officers to offer greater detail about the stops than they have in the past.

A Chicago police spokesman acknowledged it’s been a decades-old problem.

Escalante didn’t link the increase in homicides to unseasonably warm weather this January, though violent crime typically increases with warmer weather.

It also shut down businesses deemed to pose a “public safety threat” and moved almost 400 officers off foot patrol and into vehicles so they can respond more quickly.