While Chicagoans saw the city's homicides rise past 500 last year, residents of the state's second largest city, Aurora, quietly observed a milestone of their own — a year without a slaying.

The slaying-free year was Aurora's first in recent times, police Sgt. Matt Thomas said.

Aurora, a city of about 200,000 on the Fox River west of Chicago, notched 25 homicides in 2002, but totals have dropped recently, according to FBI statistics. There were five in 2009, four in 2010 and two in 2011, according to the FBI.

During the city's more violent years, Aurora police and city officials blamed gang tensions, in part, for higher slaying totals, according to media reports. Thomas attributed the drop to "proactive police work."

"We changed our tactics up and have been successful," he said.