“Last year, with 499 murders, Philadelphia had the distinction of having the second-highest homicide rate in the country, second only to Chicago.”
Not even close. St Louis had 87/100,000, the worst since 1970.
Philly’s pop. is nearly 1.6 million. 500 homicides/1.6 M people is just over 30/100,000.
Maybe he meant homicides by raw number, not per 100,000?