Nearly a week of 2008 passed before Pittsburgh saw its first homicide of the year.

Then, on Jan. 6, two people forced their way into an apartment in Elmore Square in the Hill District and 32-year-old Shawn Robinson was shot in the chest, trunk and abdomen. He died at the scene. No one has been arrested.

January turned into a month of tragic shootings. Jolesa Barber, 12, died in her sister's rowhouse on the North Side when 40 rounds of gunfire were sprayed at windows, doors and walls. Ernest Tolliver, 15, was killed by a gunman as he waited with his mother and younger sister at a Homewood KFC drive-thru lane.

By Dec. 31, the Pittsburgh Police Bureau had investigated 79 homicides for the year.

The number is unofficial and could fall to 73 when the bureau reclassifies some deaths as accidental or justifiable, including three police-involved shootings. But even the lower figure makes 2008 the city's bloodiest year since 1993, when there were 83 homicides. The number also represents a 28 percent increase from 2007, when the city recorded 57 homicides.

The bureau's clearance rate for homicides -- those where an arrest was made or a case was otherwise solved -- went down from 75 percent in 2007 to about 49 percent for 2008.

Allegheny County as a whole had 120 murders in 2008, up from 98. The record, 125, was set in 2003.

The increase comes as some major cities are seeing sharp drops in their homicide rates. Baltimore finished the year with its lowest number in two decades, while Cleveland had a 24 percent decrease.

Preliminary national crime statistics won't be released by the FBI until spring, but a review of unofficial figures from 25 of the 52 police departments in cities with a population of over 350,000 showed 15 of the 25 had fewer slayings last year than in '07, according to The Associated Press.

Homicides in New York, the nation's largest city, rose 5.2 percent, to 522 from 496 the year before, while murders in Los Angeles, the second largest city, dropped to 376 in 2008 from 400 the prior year.

Law enforcement officials in Pittsburgh, with a population of 311,000, don't have any simple explanations for the city's numbers.

"We had a wide range of homicides [in 2008]. We had quite a few robberies, robbery attempts. We had domestic incidents," Pittsburgh Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said. "Some were just arguments that got out of hand."

Still, there are patterns: 65 of the city's murder victims were black, and 56 were black males. Five were under the age of 17. The average age was just over 28.

Out of the 79 homicide cases investigated by police, 64, or 81 percent, involved firearms.

"Our youth today can get a gun quicker than they can get a job or something to eat," said El Gray, program director for One Vision One Life, an Allegheny County anti-violence initiative based in the Hill District.

Mr. Gray lost his grandson, 19-year-old Raemon Gray, to a North Side shooting in November. A cousin, 23-year-old Alvin Smith, had been shot to death in Fineview just a few days before.

The total number of aggravated assaults in the city actually declined 9.6 percent from 2007 to 2008 -- meaning fewer but deadlier attacks.

The number of guns pulled from the streets was stable. Police recovered 551 firearms from January through the end of November, while 608 were recovered in all of 2007, according to Assistant Chief Bryant.

"If you're carrying one, you're more apt to use it," she said.

In some cases, successful police operations against drug rings may have changed the power dynamics on the streets.

In November, for instance, city police worked with federal authorities and the Allegheny County district attorney's office to make dozens of arrests in a smuggling network centered in Brookline, Mount Washington and Beltzhoover.

Assistant Chief Bryant didn't connect specific homicides to new turf battles, but, she said, "People might have to regroup and travel to other neighborhoods to get their drugs of choice."

Mr. Gray said he had heard about a drug "drought" in some neighborhoods.

Killings occurred all over the city in 2008, but only three areas saw double digits -- 12 in the Hill District, 12 in Homewood and 13 on the North Side, according to figures from the Allegheny County medical examiner's office.

Mount Washington saw four homicides, including the death of 15-year-old Raymond Reese, who was hit in the chest on June 15 during a drive-by shooting on Pasadena Street in Mount Washington. Two other teens were wounded.

Police said Raymond was an innocent bystander, as was Vincent Terry, a maintenance man who was caught in crossfire in an East Liberty parking lot in July, and Sandra Stewart, a 56-year-old grandmother who was hit in the head by a .40-caliber bullet in September as she sat on the porch of her sister's house on Curtin Avenue in Beltzhoover.

More typical is the case of Mr. Robinson, the city's first murder victim of 2008, who had a lengthy criminal record. In 1995, he pleaded guilty to charges of statutory rape, corruption of minors and indecent assault. He received a prison sentence of 15 months to seven years.

He then was arrested at least five times for a range of drug charges and, on one occasion, possession of a firearm. In December 2006, he was arrested for attempting to sell crack cocaine at the Addison Terrace apartments in Elmore Square.

According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Robinson told a police detective who caught him with the drugs that he was hoping to get money to see a movie.

He was killed on the same spot just over a year later.

Mr. Robinson's case remains unsolved, like the majority of 2008 murders in Pittsburgh.

Assistant Chief Bryant said the larger workload has contributed to a falling clearance rate for homicide investigations. Detectives from narcotics, robbery and other police units are taking 60-day assignments with the city's homicide squad to help with the case load.

"Our detectives are doing a pretty good job," Assistant Chief Bryant said.

Some investigators say their work is hampered when witnesses are reluctant to come forward with information. The situation may have worsened in recent years, since the emergence of a "snitch list" that circulated at the Allegheny County Jail. It named more than 100 people who had cooperated with authorities by reporting crimes, giving information on others, or testifying.

Local officials are trying to address the violence on several fronts. Following a string of shootings over the summer, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and city Councilman Ricky Burgess announced the creation of the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime, which is modeled after a successful Boston program.

The program's architect, professor David Kennedy of the City University of New York, is crafting a plan to target the most violent mini-gangs in Pittsburgh. It's due mid-year.

More controversial is an effort to stem the flow of guns into the city.

In October, council members Doug Shields, William Peduto and Bruce Kraus introduced legislation requiring that gun owners whose firearms are lost or stolen promptly report that to the police or face penalties.

The mayor questioned the city's legal authority to enact such measures without changes at the state level. But the bill became law without his signature.

Mr. Kraus said the mayor should enforce the new gun provisions until the issue is settled in court or legislators in Harrisburg create new statewide reporting rules for lost or stolen guns.

"I think it was the best thing council did in [2008]," he said.

Mr. Gray said the city should focus on programs that keep young people off the streets. He said his organization is working with local employers, such as construction companies, to create apprenticeships.

"Doors of opportunity need to be opened," he said. "Idle time is the devil's workshop."

Pittsburgh's record year for homicides, 1993, followed the crack cocaine epidemic and intense gang rivalries. The murder number has since gone down and back up again, hitting a low of 32 in 1998 and then 68 in 2003.

"People search for reasons, but you can't always come up with them," said former police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., who headed the bureau from 1996 until the end of 2005. "These things go in cycles."

He and his commanders held monthly meetings to go over crime statistics and discuss every homicide that occurred.

If a retaliatory strike seemed likely after a killing, police would try to prevent that strike, said Chief McNeilly, who now runs the Elizabeth Township police department.

"The city is doing the same thing we did when I was chief," he said.

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