Spokane's new police chief is vowing to reduce violence in the state's second-largest city.

Spokane recorded 14 homicides in 2012, half of them in the month of December.

The Spokesman-Review reports that the seven homicides in December alone nearly doubled the 2011 total of four and tied the number of homicides for all of 2010.

Police Chief Frank Straub says preliminary numbers show that violent crimes in the city have climbed from 1,304 incidents in 2011 to 1,348 in 2012.

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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com