Homicides decline in Cook County, but opioid deaths on record-breaking pace

The number of homicides handled by the Cook County medical examiner's office dropped more than 15% in 2022, but cases of fatal opioid overdoses are likely to top last year's record figure, according to preliminary data released Tuesday.

With hundreds of toxicology tests still pending, the office so far has confirmed 1,599 opioid overdose deaths in 2022. About 400 to 500 of those pending tests are expected to confirm opioid toxicity as the cause of death, pushing the final number above 2,000 and eclipsing the previous high of 1,936 from 2021, officials said.

In 2015, there were 647 deadly opioid overdoses in the county, according to the medical examiner's office.

About 78% of the confirmed overdose victims last year were male, while 56% were Black, 28% white and 15% Latin, the data shows. The age group most affected was 50-59, while the youngest victim was a 12-year-old boy from Chicago.

The medical examiner handled 927 homicides in 2022, down from 1,094 in 2021 but still a marked increase from the 675 in 2019. Guns were involved in 817 of the killings, and 740 of them occurred in Chicago.

While overall homicides declined, the number of children killed rose about 13%, with 97 of the victims under the age of 18, and 21 of those younger than 10.

Blacks were the victims of 76% of the homicides and Latinos accounted for more than 18% of the victims. Male victims accounted for 86% of the homicides, according to the medical examiner.

The number of suicides dipped slightly, with 474 confirmed in 2022, compared to 506 in 2021. There were 453 suicides in 2020, the office reported. Male victims accounted for 78% of the suicides, and 60% of the victims were white, 19.5% Black, 16% Latino and 4.5% Asian.

Overall, the medical examiner's office's caseload continued to significantly surpass pre-COVID levels, with 10,443 cases last year. That's a drop from the peak caseload of 16,047 in 2020 and 12,612 in 2021, but before the pandemic, the office handled approximately 6,200 deaths a year, officials said.

The medical examiner's office confirmed 2,479 COVID-19 deaths in 2022, but the figure does not represent all COVID deaths that occurred in the county last year. Beginning April 1, the office stopped taking jurisdiction of hospital, nursing home and hospice COVID-19 deaths unless another factor was present that placed the death in the medical examiner's jurisdiction.