MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis marked one year as the city's top cop, and many are wondering what progress she's made so far. In the May 24 city council meeting, she said overall crime is down 4% so far this year.
We wanted to see if that's true because we've been reporting a spike in homicides and car break-ins among many other crimes. We looked through incidents on the Memphis Data Hub and the numbers are contradicting.
For the first six months of 2021, Memphis reported 141 homicides. So far this year, that number stands at 120, which is a 15% decrease. When you look at assaults during the same time frame, Memphis saw a .89% drop.
Looking at overall theft and robbery incidents in Memphis, that number has gone up by 16%. At this time last year, there were almost 14,000 reported thefts and robberies.
So far this year, we've seen 16,158.
Memphis police announced a spike in car break-ins this week, with it being the No. 1 crime reported in Memphis. So far in 2022, we're seeing a 35% increase in car thefts and break-ins compared to last year. There were 5,148 between January 2021 and June 2021. In the first six months of this year, there have been 6,987 reports.
If you compare all the crime reports from this year to this same time last year, Memphis is seeing a 10% increase.
All of this data came from the city of Memphis, which is made public and can be viewed here. It's unclear what numbers Chief Davis is citing with her claim of a 4% decrease in crime.
We reached out to the police department to clarify. They told us to formally request that data. We did and are waiting for a response.