The crime rate in Chicago dropped over the winter, which resulted in the chief of police and Mayor Emanuel crowing about what a great job they were doing.

Until the weather got a little better.

CBS Chicago:

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said a bloody holiday weekend that saw at least eight people shot and killed and dozens others wounded “doesn’t wipe out” reductions in violent crime in the past two years.

Since Friday evening, at least eight people were shot and killed in Chicago, and at least 44 others were wounded, police said

“This doesn’t wipe out what has happened over the last two years, and this is a conversation that we’ve had time and time again,” Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Monday morning. “There’s no magic formula here. We have a plan, we have a strategy, and it’s hard work. That’s what it is. … It’s a day-by-day, minute-by-minute grind, and we’re into busy season. That’s what it is.”

Although murders in Chicago spiked to 516 in 2012 – only the second time homicides surpassed 500 since 2003 – they dropped to 415 last year, the lowest murder total for Chicago in nearly 50 years.

The superintendent said the vast majority of shootings in Chicago are gang-related, and detectives were working to determine “which of the hot conflicts” were to blame for the most recent spate of violence.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said addressing the violence isn’t just about what the police do but what the schools, community groups and parents do to instill values in their children.

Brietbart reports that an investigation conducted by Chicago Magazine found that city officials were cooking the books on crime stats:

Last week, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy claimed that his department was "making progress" on defeating crime and pointed to the lower rates as proof.

Not everyone is accepting McCarthy's claims as given.

Many say the weather was the main factor, not the police. Their case is bolstered by the fact that during the first weekend of the year favored by moderate weather, violence in Chicago exploded with 35 shootings in only 36 hours.

But others see something more nefarious in the falling crime rates than just an oppressive Winter. A new investigative report by Chicago Magazine claims that Mayor Emanuel and Superintendent McCarthy are cooking the stats to make it appear that crime is falling when in fact it is not.

The magazine says that murders and violent crimes are being reported in ways that hide them from accumulated statistics.

In one case, for instance, a woman was murdered but because her corpse had so many different injuries the coroner couldn't determine exactly which one killed her. But instead of classifying the death as a murder, the Chicago police classified the death as a "noncriminal death." How could a clear murder be called a "noncriminal death"? According to police, it was because they coroner didn't specify what injury killed her.

"With the stroke of a computer key, she was airbrushed out of Chicago’s homicide statistics," Chicago Magazine notes.

In another case a man was found severely beaten. He died a few days after being taken to the hospital. Instead of classifying his death as a result of a criminal act, police classified the cause of his death as “diabetes.”

These weren't the only cases the magazine found, either.

"We identified 10 people... who were beaten, burned, suffocated, or shot to death in 2013 and whose cases were reclassified as death investigations, downgraded to more minor crimes, or even closed as noncriminal incidents—all for illogical or, at best, unclear reasons," the article says.

The authors also found the same "troubling practice" in the reporting of other crimes, "including serious felonies such as robberies, burglaries, and assaults, that were misclassified, downgraded to wrist-slap offenses, or made to vanish altogether."

It was all a "betrayal of public trust," the authors wrote.

A "betrayal of public trust" is a mild transgression in Chicato. After all, you can't be indicted for it or go to jail because of it. It's doubtful you'd even lose your job because of it.

Chalk it up to reporting crime statistics "The Chicago Way."