According to a report at pilotonline.com, highly recruited point guard Evan Gilyard is shunning schools in his home city of Chicago, instead choosing the University of Texas-El Paso—located, incidentally, in one of the most gun-friendly areas in the country.
“It’s safer out there,” Gilyard told pilotonline. “In Chicago you have a lot of violence, a lot of gang violence, and it hasn’t been as safe. When I looked at UTEP, I saw there was a very small amount of murders.”
Gilyard makes a good point. This year, the Chicago homicide toll has already surpassed 700, and more than 4,000 people have been shot. And while some might say comparing the two communities is comparing apples to oranges, El Paso has a violent crime rate of 3.75 per 1,000 residents, while Chicago’s is nearly three times higher, at 9.08 per 1,000 residents.
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