Sobering: Three municipalities in Palm Beach County accounted for forty-five homicides in 2018.

There were ninety-nine homicides last year in Palm Beach County. In 2017 there were one hundred and two homicides in PBC. In 2017 there were twenty-eight murders in West Palm Beach.

“Nervous — make that terrified — residents need to see that the police department can be relied upon to keep their neighborhoods from feeling like war zones.”

—Editor(s), Sunday, Nov. 12th, 2017, “Unacceptable rise in WPB homicides requires quicker action”.

Here is the latest news published in The Palm Beach Post:


West Palm Beach had 26 homicides, the most of any county municipality, and two shy of the city’s total for 2017. There were 27 homicides in the unincorporated areas of Palm Beach County. In Riviera Beach, there were 12 homicides, one shy of the city’s total in 2017.

—Source: Palm Beach Post reporter Julius Whigham, news datelined Dec. 31st, 2018, headlined, “Palm Beach County homicides in 2018: Nearly 100 people were killed”.


For some perspective, in all of unincorporated Palm Beach County and seven municipalities patrolled by PBSO there were forty-three (43) homicides in 2018. In just three municipalities — West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and Delray Beach — there were forty-five (45) homicides.

The number of homicides below is from the Post’s “Homicides tracker” database (highlighted in yellow are areas patrolled by PBSO):


West Palm Beach: 26
Riviera Beach: 12
Delray Beach: 7
Boynton Beach: 4
Pahokee: 4
Lake Worth: 3
Palm Beach Gardens: 3
Belle Glade: 2
Boca Raton: 2
Greenacres: 2
Lake Park: 2
Royal Palm Beach: 2
Highland Beach: 1
South Bay: 1
Unknown municipality: 1
Unincorporated PBC: 27

And an oft-posed questions on this blog.

What happened in WPB that caused the homicide rate to fall so dramatically from ten homicides back in 2016 and then spike up to twenty-eight in 2017? Shouldn’t that be the focus of an enterprising reporter or editor(s) at the Post?