Hundreds of friends and family of victims of violent crime gather in Yucca Park at the annual reading of more than 1,500 names engraved into the memorials granite walls.(Danya P. Hernandez / Borderzine)

El Paso’s violent crime rate belies its top ranking as a safe city

EL PASO — In El Paso’s Lower Valley four granite disks hold the names of more than 1,500 victims of violent crime, a memorial linking the shattered lives of thousands who have witnessed how this city is not as safe as everyone believes. This year 67 names were added to the wall, 15 of them killed by a drunk driver. This statistic is not being factored in when El Paso is ranked one of the safest cities in the United States every year by the CQ press, an independent publisher of a book titled City Crime Rankings. “Every day, I listen to the news. I hear the radio.