out in support of charter schools, praising what he proclaimed to be charter schools' ability to attract quality teachers, arrange lessons to fit students' needs, and establish flexibile workplace rules. Public safety and law enforcement During Menino's tenure, crime in Boston fell to record lows, and the city came to rank among the United States' safest large cities. Boston's violent crime rate fell from 1,957.7 in 1993, to 845.2 in 2011. Menino took office amid the "Boston Miracle", a successful joint effort by police, churches, and neighborhood groups which worked to decrease youth-on-youth violence. At the start of his tenure, Boston was experiencing a 29-month long period in which no teenagers were murdered in the city. This ended on December 11, 1997, when a sixteen year old was murdered in Dorcester. Menino supported Operation Ceasefire, which is credited with decreasing homicide rate in the city. In 2003, the Operation Ceasefire program received the United States Department of Justice's "Outstanding Comprehensive Strategic Plan Award". In his last year in office, the Boston Marathon bombing took place. Menino, who had been recovering in the hospital from a leg fracture at the time of the attacks (confining him to a wheelchair), checked out of the hospital in order to be present in the aftermath of the attacks. Public health Menino oversaw negotiations that led to the January 1996 merger of the Boston City Hospital (which had been declining, and was in financial trouble) with the BU Medical Center. This merger had been arranged with the aim of improving healthcare for the city's more impoverished residents. This merger resulted in the establishment of the privatized Boston Medical Center. Menino had, as a city councilor, previously given support to the idea of reorganizing the Boston City Hospital. The Menino Pavilion at the Boston Medical Center would later be named for him, crediting his efforts on public health. In the early 2000s, Menino was an early supporter of efforts to pass a statewide ban in Massachusetts on smoking in indoor workplaces. In 2012, Boston became Massachusetts' first large city, as well as the largest city in the United States, to ban smoking in public housing. As he had during his tenure on the Boston City Council, Menino supported needle exchange programs as mayor. In 2004, in an effort to fight childhood obesity, Menino banned sodas from Boston Public Schools. In April 2011, in a similar effort