Nashville ranks 4th on FBI list for violent crime

By RACHEL STULTS • Staff Writer • June 11, 2008 Nashville ranked 4th in violent crime last year among cities with populations of 500,000 or more, despite a nationwide drop in violent crime, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics released this week. Nashville, which showed 8,513 violent crimes in 2007, ranked behind Detroit, Memphis and Baltimore. Some of the nation’s largest cities, such as New York City, were not included in the report. The FBI considers violent crime to include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Nashville ranked 4th among 33 cities with populations of 500,000 or more. On the list of all cities that reported to the FBI, Nashville ranked 12th out of 257. Despite Nashville’s ranking on the list, the city showed a slight drop from 2006 in every violent crime category except for robbery, which rose from 2,425 to 2,516 robberies. Preliminary figures show the nation, on average, reported a decrease of 1.4 percent in the number of violent crimes in 2007 compared to 2006. Detroit, which took the No. 1 spot on the list for violent crimes, showed 19,683 violent crimes in 2007