The first few months of 2012 were very violent, and gun violence in Chicago was often in the national headlines. The year ended with a little more than 500 murders. That’s higher than the 450 homicide the city had each year for much of the last decade, but still much lower than the 1990s, when there were sometimes more than 900 a year.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says murders are back down from last year’s rise and shootings are also down, which is important.

“In a city where 85 percent of the murders are by gunshot, we concentrate on reducing the gunshots to reduce the murders,” said McCarthy in an interview with Thursday.

The department says there were 231 murders in the first eight  months of this year. McCarthy says that’s fewer than any year since 1965.