Houston crime numbers released for 2017

Houston's top cop gave updated crime stats for Houston on Monday.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo's sense and judgment have led this city's police force for just over a year. So, how did the city do in his first year?

Murders are down more than 10 percent from last year. 25 percent of them were gang-related. 16 percent were family violence -- one of the reason's the city is launching a zero tolerance policy on domestic violence.

Chief Acevedo mentioned that around 70 percent of murder victims had a criminal history -- half of them with felony convictions.

"We're not trying to demonize people or saying anything other than, I think it's really important if we're going to fight crime and be data-driven, intelligence led, you have to have a profile on your suspect and a profile on victims."

It wasn't all good news.

"The bad news is sexual assaults show an increase of 12.6 percent," Chief Acevedo said.

Aggravated assaults -- when someone tries or purposefully hurts someone with a deadly weapon -- also went up almost 14 percent. Chief Acevedo says most of those attackers knew their victims.

"Somebody knows somebody, they have an argument, the next thing you know they bring out a gun and they just shoot somebody or they just stab somebody, or get a bat and hit them over the head. That was unheard of when we were kids and there's something going on in society," Chief Acevedo said. "That doesn't speak to policing. That doesn't speak to laws. That speaks to human decency and the way we treat each other. So we're going to challenge the community this year, that the police aren't going to be the ones that reduce aggravated assaults. We need to take ownership for our own actions."