Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, center, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, speaks at a news conference in August. Police say homicides in Chicago fell by about 100 over the last year compared to 2017.

CHICAGO — Preliminary numbers indicate that homicides in Chicago fell by about 100 last year compared to 2017, though the total again eclipses the number of homicides in Los Angeles and New York combined, according to data released Tuesday.

Police in Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, report that 561 homicides were committed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 18, 2018. That compares to 660 homicides in 2017 and more than 770 in 2016, which marked a 19-year high that put a national spotlight on Chicago’s persistently high rates of gun violence.

Chicago police credit the decreases in part to the addition of more than 1,000 new officers in recent years. Police also cite the creation of high-tech nerve centers in 20 out of 22 police districts, where officers rely on gunshot-detection technology and predictive analytics that help quickly get police to areas where violence is most likely to erupt.

“Are we where we want to be? Of course not,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. “I do think we are taking steps in the right direction.”

Official numbers for 2018 are expected to be released in several weeks, according to the department. Johnson has previously said “a reasonable goal” would be to one day get the annual number of homicides to below 300.

Although the decrease in 2018 is significant, the homicide total is a repeat of 2016 and 2017, when the number of killings in Chicago was higher than the combined total in the country’s two other largest cities. As of about mid-December, New York had 278 homicides and Los Angeles had 243.

President Donald Trump has often singled out Chicago’s high homicide rate, tweeting in 2017: “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ ... I will send in the Feds!” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has accused Trump of oversimplifying the problem and potential solutions.

While homicide numbers dropped in many districts in Chicago in 2018, they went up in several neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides which have been plagued for years by gun and gang-related violence.