CMPD’s End-of-Year Report Shows Drop in All Crime Categories

CMPD released its annual end-of-year report on Jan. 15, showing a decrease in overall and violent crime stats in Charlotte in 2025.

The report came a week before city officials were scheduled to testify in front of the NC House Oversight Committee (NC HOC) to answer questions about a perceived public safety crisis in Charlotte, though that hearing has been delayed following a judge’s order to halt certain aspects of the committee’s probe.

CMPD Chief Estella Patterson, sworn in to replace Johnny Jennings in early December 2025, led a press conference on Thursday morning to present the data, reporting a 9% drop in overall crime in Charlotte in 2025, with a 21% decrease in violent crime and a 6% decrease in property crime. 

Breaking the numbers down further, CMPD reported a 13% drop in homicides in 2025 as compared to 2024, a 24% decrease in robberies and a 20% decrease in aggravated assaults. 

“These improvements reflect persistent, often unseen work that is driving real change,” Patterson said Thursday. “These results are not just numbers; they are the outcome of targeted strategies.”

The department’s annual end-of-year report came amidst a probe from Republican state lawmakers into transit safety and public safety more broadly in Charlotte following the murder of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail car in August, which garnered national headlines, and another random stabbing of a passenger in December that drew disturbing parallels. 

Read more: How Iryna Zarutska’s Killing Sparked a National Outrage

On Dec. 19, the NC HOC sent an inquiry to Patterson, Mayor Vi Lyles, City Manager Marcus Jones, County Manager Mike Bryant, District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, and Sheriff Garry McFadden requesting all communications from Jan. 1, 2020 to present that involve certain topics. 

Those topics include the murder of Iryna Zarutska; “the perceived or actual rise in crime” on public transit; any efforts to “reimagine policing;” the Charlotte Area Transit System as it relates to security, staffing, public safety and criminal incidents; law enforcement recruiting; policies or practices involving cooperation with federal immigration enforcement; DEI initiatives; and others.

Early in January, the committee requested the city leaders go to Raleigh to testify on these topics during a hearing on Jan. 22. McFadden has confirmed that he plans to testify though it’s unclear who else will take up the invitation. 

Despite the perceived crisis, Thursday’s report continues a downward trend in crime seen in the data from last year’s end-of-year stats. Considering the rapid growth the city is seeing in its population year over year, that trend would be more defined if the data was calculated per capita.  

Especially notable in Thursday’s report was a drop in homicides. While the 110 homicides reported in Charlotte in 2024 marked a 25% increase compared to the year before, the 96 reported by the department this year marked a 13% drop.  

In the above map, black markers signify deaths by gun violence, green markers signify killings that may be deemed justified, red markers signify stabbings, yellow markers signify murder by vehicle, purple markers signify deaths by trauma or unknown cause, and blue markers signify police killings.

Queen City Nerve’s own mapping of Charlotte homicides in 2025, a project we’ve undertaken since 2020, documented 107 homicides throughout the year. While each of our data points were taken directly from CMPD reports, our numbers often come in higher than the department’s because of how we define “homicide.” 

While CMPD’s Charlotte crime stats follow the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting standards, which do not include police killings or other homicides deemed as “justified,” ours do include all homicides in which one person was believed to have intentionally killed another. 

Oftentimes CMPD investigators and/or the district attorney’s office will rule that a previously reported homicide was deemed justified and remove it from their list internally. Those cases are not marked as justified in our map above.   

For comparison, Queen City Nerve mapped 127 homicides in Charlotte in 2024 compared to 107 in 2025, a nearly 16% drop.

There were two other notable takeaways from our mapping project in 2025. First, the fourth quarter of the year (Q4), during which we mapped 37 killings, was by far the deadliest, as no other quarter saw more than 25.  

Second, Uptown saw a significant increase in murders in 2025, which likely played a role in perceptions of public safety across the city. While we mapped four homicides inside the I-277 loop and one just outside it in 2024, last year saw nine homicides inside the loop and two more within a block or two, including one in the bustling Metropolitan parking garage. 

During Thursday’s press conference, Patterson touted Operation Safe Season, a multi‑agency effort that took place during the first two weekends of December following her swearing-in-ceremony. The operation “enhanced visibility, focused enforcement efforts and strengthened collaboration with state and federal partners to ensure Uptown’s safety during peak holiday activity,” read a release from the department. 

That operation was a part of the CROWN Initiative (Center City’s Restoration of Order, Wellness and Nonviolence), which launched in Q4 as “a focused, high-impact effort … to immediately address the perception of crime in Charlotte’s Uptown district,” according to CMPD’s report.

The CROWN Initiative involves a unit of officers focused on strict enforcement of violent and quality-of-life crimes within a half-mile radius of “The Square” at Trade and Tryon streets.

CMPD also reported a 5% increase in total police interactions in 2025, including a rise in “officer‑initiated proactive activity” by 21%, a 23% increase in gun seizures, and a 14% increase in arrests.

Chief Patterson closed Thursday’s briefing by reaffirming her top priorities for 2026, as she declared in December when she was sworn in: reducing violent crime and disorder, enhancing community engagement and collaboration, and improving employee morale and wellness including recruitment and retention. 

Here is a look at some of the raw data from CMPD’s end-of-year report, with Charlotte crime stats compared to 2024: 

• Violent crimes: 5,852 offenses in 2025 compared to 7,436 offenses in 2024
• Homicides: 96 in 2025 compared to 110 in 2024
• Aggravated assaults: 4,533 in 2025 compared to 5,695 in 2024
• Rapes: 172 in 2025 compared to 242 in 2024
• Robberies: 1,050 in 2025 compared to 1,389 in 2024
• Property crimes: 35,112 offenses in 2025 compared to 37,451 in 2024
• Residential burglaries: 1,644 in 2025 compared to 1,756 in 2024
• Commercial burglaries: 2,346 in 2025 compared to 2,546 in 2024
• Larcenies from automobiles: 10,252 in 2025 compared to 10,341 in 2024
• Vehicle thefts: 5,960 in 2025 compared to 7,442 in 2024
• Arsons: 122 in 2025 compared to 163 in 2024

Read the full report here.