The West Texas Violence Index compares data for four cities on violent events that can overwhelm a community and its people. The four cities are Abilene, Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo. A distinctive aspect of the Index is that, unlike a snapshot of a crime spree or a rash of accidents, it looks beyond a single type of violence at a specific point-in-time. The Index tracks six indicators of different types of violence over the most recent five-years of available data for each type. The six indicators for the Index are violent crime, family violence, sexual assault, child abuse and neglect, suicide, and accidental deaths.