Families grieve as Chicago killings increase

A stack of glossy images showing an active and smiling young man is all that's left for Darius McGraw's family to remember him by.

On a cold morning in November 2012, 22-year-old McGraw was gunned down while walking to the home of his fiancée on Chicago's Southwest Side to pick up the couple's two-year-old daughter, Harmony.

"You could tell he was a loving father," said 58-year-old Arthur McGraw, remembering his son. "[Harmony] was his life."

The McGraw family said they weren't sure who killed Darius, but they were not alone in being forced to mourn a loved one slain in President Barack Obama's hometown and the US' third largest city last year.

According to a website set up by The Chicago Tribune to track homicides in the city, 513 people were killed in Chicago in 2012, most by gun violence.

The number is 15 percent higher than the previous year, and higher than more populous cities such as New York and Los Angeles - where the homicide rate has been decreasing in recent years.

Al Jazeera's Matthew Cassel reports from Chicago.

Read the full report here: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/20131916159774598.html