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While many couldn t wait for 2020 to end, it did have at least one redeeming value a dramatic drop in the number of homicides in the city of Peoria.
After a record-setting 2019 in which the city saw 25 homicides the most in at least 30 years, Peoria s total in 2020 fell to 14, with the last one coming on Dec. 30.
The decline was a welcome sign to Peoria police Chief Loren Marion, though he noted that the city did see an increase in the number of shootings but not deaths. It is by the grace of God, he said. We were lucky that we had fewer homicides. Like other cities across the country, we are up in the number of shooting incidents and people shot. That being said, we did have a couple of incidents where a large number of people were shot.
Mr. Clark
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Joe Louis Clark, the baseball bat and bullhorn-wielding principal whose unwavering commitment to his students and uncompromising disciplinary methods inspired the 1989 film âLean on Me,â died at his Florida home on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, after a long battle with an unspecified illness, his family said. He was 82.
At crime- and drug-ridden Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J., Mr. Clark expelled 300 students in a single day for fighting, vandalism, abusing teachers and drug possession. That lifted the expectations of those who remained, continually challenging them to perform better.
Mr. Clarkâs unorthodox methods, which included roaming the hallways with a bullhorn and a baseball bat, won him both admirers and critics nationwide. President Ronald Reagan offered Mr. Clark a White House policy adviser position after his success at the high school.