The Ruins of Trenton

The same week that saw Trenton's 24th and 25th homicides for the year of 2007 featured the release of the annual CQ Press Annual Safest/Most Dangerous Cities report, in which Trenton was labeled the most improved city.

Its Quitno crime number dropped over 80 points, which was the greatest drop in ranking factors of any city within the report, according to the creators of the survey. Trenton also dropped from number four to number seven in its ranking category of most dangerous cities with 75,000 to 99,000 residents.

Officials from the Douglas H. Palmer administration and the police department's appointed leadership have not yet commented on the report's findings, which have been consistently attacked in the past and labelled as a misuse of crime data that did more harm than good to cities contained in the report.

But it will be interesting to see if a city government that continually contradicts itself and the law will contradict past commentary on the reports, now that there seems to be some positive news about Trenton.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors - of which Mayor Palmer is president - has also maintained a negative stance on the reports, for the same reasons mentioned above, so it would probably be hard for Mayor Palmer to reverse his stance and go directly against the national organization.

Whatever happens and whatever is said, remember the report does use a system that does not take into account many factors that distinguish cities from each other, and it is based upon the FBI's Uniform Crime Report data put together by the Trenton Police Department.

This is the same data at the same department whose compilation methods were called into question this month by local media outlets that speculated that crimes were being downgraded and the public was being kept in the dark about the city's crime situation.

So, take it with a grain of salt.