The state’s attorney’s office has announced a firearm fatality dashboard which is a new online tool to help residents and organizations track data on gun deaths in Lake County.
The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office announced the Firearm Fatality Dashboard this week.
Officials said it is a “significant step” toward understanding and preventing gun violence.
The dashboard is a tool designed to provide residents, government partners and organizations with the most recent data on firearm fatalities across the county.
The data collection and public education program is part of work done by the state’s attorney’s office’s Gun Violence Prevention Initiative (GVPI) to identify trends, allocate resources and broaden the community conversation about ending gun violence.
“Everyone deserves to be safe in their community. Gun violence is measurable and preventable. As a community and as a democracy, we should have accurate, up-to-date gun violence information available at our fingertips,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said.
“This dashboard is a vital tool to give us that information quickly so that we help others and have meaningful community conversations about how to save lives,” Rinehart said.
The state’s attorney’s office claimed the data from 2022 through 2024 showed a 73% decrease in firearm homicides, with a 55% decrease reported from 2022 to 2023 and an additional 18% decrease from 2023 to 2024.
However, the data from the dashboard shows 38 firearm homicides occurred in 2022, 20 occurred in 2023 and 14 occurred in 2024, which means the decrease in firearm homicides from 2022 to 2024 was actually a 63% decrease, not a 73% decrease.
The most impacted communities in Lake County — Waukegan, Zion and North Chicago — saw a 31% decrease in firearm homicides from 2023 to 2024.
The Firearm Fatality Dashboard includes data on all deaths involving firearms, including homicides, suicides, unintentional deaths and undetermined deaths.
Officials say the dashboard will allow police, healthcare officials, elected leaders and community organizations to determine which programs are working and which communities need increased interventions.
The dashboard allows users to view data based on gender, race, ethnicity, age range, firearm fatality type and municipality.
It also allows data to be filtered by month and day and is updated weekly by the Lake County Coroner’s Office.
The creation of the dashboard was a collaborative effort between the Lake County Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, the Lake County GIS team and the Lake County Coroner’s Office.
The dashboard, which includes data from 2020 to the present, will eventually include non-fatal shootings and other major gun crimes.
The state’s attorney’s office said data provided by law enforcement agencies show a 63% decrease in non-fatal shootings in Waukegan, Zion and North Chicago between 2022 and 2024.
Editor’s Note: The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office acknowledged to Lake and McHenry County Scanner after the publication of this story that some of the state’s attorney’s office’s initial data figures released were inaccurate. The decrease in firearm homicides was 63% from 2022 to 2024, 47% from 2022 to 2023 and 30% from 2023 to 2024.