Violent crime rising in US cities: Study

Violent crimes are on the rise this year in major cities across the United States, including homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults and shootings, a new report has found.

There were 307 more murders in large cities in the first six months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, according to a midyear violent crime survey released by the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

The report also found that there have been about 2,000 more aggravated assaults, 1,000 more robberies and 600 more non-fatal shootings in 2016 than at the midway point in 2015.

The rising US crime rate is continuing a trend that began last year after decades of falling crime levels.

More than half of the increase in homicides occurred in the cities of Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida; where 49 people were killed last month in the largest mass shooting in US history.

Chicago has experienced 316 homicides so far, the most of any city and a 48 percent increase over last year.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pointed to Chicago's problems with homicide in the past, and noted the city's connection to US President Barack Obama during the Republican National Convention.

Obama moved to Chicago, Illinois, in the mid 1980s and represented the state of Illinois in the US Senate from 2004 to 2008.

"In the president's hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 people have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office," Trump told delegates Thursday in Cleveland, Ohio.

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