Detroit's Battered Image Takes Another Blow
Just when Detroit was shedding its "Murder City" image, Deletha Word was beaten in public and plunged off a bridge to her death Saturday.</br></br>The crime has once again forced Detroit to confront its reputation as one of the nation's most dangerous, callous cities.</br></br>"We have just been inundated," Wayne County Prosecutor John O'Hair said of callers from out of town. "This fortifies their existing impression, that . . . there is a great deal of violence and lawlessness."</br></br>Detroit had the nation's No. 1 murder rate from 1985 through 1987. But the crime rate is falling -- murders in the first half of this year were down 9 percent: 271 compared with 298 in the first half of 1994.</br></br>The economy has improved with the auto industry's rebound, unemployment is down and Dennis Archer, a popular pro business mayor, is in office. Money magazine recently ranked Detroit 56th -- up from 295th -- in its annual best-places-to-live ranking.