The city of Detroit is touting a decline in violent crime — homicides, non-fatal shootings and carjackings — in the first nine months of this year compared to the same time in 2024, with Mayor Mike Duggan calling the reduction in overall crime showing “a change in a culture of accountability.”
The numbers were detailed during a news conference on Oct. 6 at the city’s public safety building downtown, hours after a 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old boy was seriously hurt during a shooting on Littlefield on the city’s west side, making the younger teen the city’s 133 homicide victim of the year, Duggan said.
There was no motive provided in the case, which remains under investigation, Police Chief Todd Bettison said. Police are looking for a blue Lincoln truck or SUV-type truck from which the shots may have been fired.
Nearly two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement officials, members of the local court systems, and community leaders touted the statistics that they say are trending below the 60-year low numbers from 2024. The city ended 2024 with 203 homicides, the fewest on record since 1965.
The figures provided were from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30. They show homicides down 15%, from 155 in 2024 to 132 this year; non-fatal shootings down 22% from 469 in 2024 to 366 this year, and carjackings down 29% from 90 in 2024 to 64 this year.
The numbers from the first three quarters of 2025 are also down significantly from the same time period in 2022 — more than 40% in each category — with carjackings down 88%, from 537 in 2013 to 64 this year.
In 2013, Duggan said, there were “15 carjackings a week.” Now, he said, there are fewer than two.
Bettison said, “We broke the back of carjackings in Detroit. It was carjack city.”
Duggan said the overall crime reduction didn’t “happen in one year. This is a change in a culture of accountability that happens over a period of years.” He said they’ve been trying to instill that accountability on the police department side and the community side.
When he became mayor 12 years ago, Duggan said the homicide clearance rate was less than 30% and the non-fatal shooting clearance rate was 15%. Now, he said, clearance rates are well above 60% in all those categories.
Duggan and others credit programs such as Project Green Light Detroit, a public-private partnership with real-time camera connections with police headquarters; the Real Time Crime Center, and ShotSpotter, which uses audio sensors to detect and alert police to gunshots.
Also, county and federal prosecutors are imbeded in seven precincts to help raise conviction rates and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also have ramped up efforts in the city.
Duggan said in September, a month that usually is one of the most violent in the city with 20 or 25 homicides, there was a record low of eight homicides. Each death, he said, “was a loss to this community.”
Bettison said there is much work to be done, and officials will continue to work on reducing violence and making Detroit one of the safest big cities in America.
City Council President Mary Sheffield said Detroit has seen less crime in the last 12 years and needs to continue the programs that address social issues, providing an holistic approach to how violence is addressed in the city.
“One life lost is still one too many,” she said. “We are making this city more safe.”
Officials said Community Violence Intervention (CVI), which tries to intervene in conflicts and prevent violence before it happens − found in seven zones in the city − also contributed to the reduction in crime.
Another CVI zone is anticipated after the Michigan legislature approved the state’s new budget with a Public Safety Trust Fund, which is to provide money to cities with a higher rate crime. Duggan said in a release that Detroit will use a portion of the money to fund another CVI zone expansion based on data collected over the past year. Sheffield said the city is seeing a 30%-50% reduction in crime in CVI zones.
“Our city is loved,” said Zoe Kennedy, executive director of FORCE Detroit, a CVI organization. “Accountability comes with love, but support comes with it as well.”
When Duggan was asked if he would accept the National Guard coming to Detroit, as President Donald Trump has sent to other cities in the U.S., he said: “I am a great believer that the way that you reduce crime in the long term is you change to a culture of accountability. You change individuals’ decision-makings so that they don’t pack the gun in the first place and they don’t go out to retaliate.”
“From day one, what we have done is try to change people’s decision-making. It is working … What we are doing is working.”
Duggan said he would welcome more of the support the city already is getting − more resources from the ATF, DEA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office backing up Detroit police and the CVI groups.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit homicides, shootings, carjackings all declining so far in 2025, Duggan says
Reporting by Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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