Here's how crime in Minneapolis and St. Paul compares with national trends in 2024

Major crimes in the Twin Cities have dropped or stayed steady from last year, though homicides, shootings and car theft remain far above pre-pandemic levels in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

That mostly tracks with data for the first six months of 2024 that show major crimes are almost all trending down on the national level. In fact, rates for multiple categories of crime have returned to 2019 levels, including homicides — a drop driven by plummeting rates in large cities that have historically had high homicide counts.

"The world is returning in many ways to pre-pandemic conditions," said Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, based in Washington, D.C.

But he also cautioned that "it would be a big mistake for anyone to be waving the victory flags at this point."

Homicides and other serious crimes rose sharply across the country in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic, fallout from George Floyd's murder and other factors roiled the nation. The Council on Criminal Justice, which has studied national trends in the years since, released its latest report in July, focusing on 39 cities from January through June of this year.

Local trends, particularly in Minneapolis, may not be as uniformly downward as national averages because of a "unique set of challenges" here, according to Michelle Phelps, a criminologist with the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. That includes low staffing at the Minneapolis Police Department, and violence interruption work that has stalled out with high turnover in the city's Office of Community Safety.

"It does seem like the city was coming into the summer with a lot of instability with the agencies and organizations that are responding to violence in the community," Phelps said.

Here's how national trends compare to local police data in Minneapolis and St. Paul so far in 2024:

Homicides slowing

Violent crime tends to pick up in summer months, and in July, Minneapolis recorded nine homicides, totaling 43 this year, according to a Star Tribune database. A downturn since then now has the city just under last year's count through Aug. 13. But homicides here remain up by two-thirds from 2019.

St. Paul is somewhat similar, showing 16 homicides this year compared to 21 last year through July, according to a Star Tribune database. That database does not stretch back to 2019, but according to police, who track homicides differently, the city recorded 13 through July that year.

The fact that the Twin Cities have shown declines in homicides but are yet to return to pre-pandemic numbers is common among American cities.

Two-thirds of the 29 cities studied for homicide trends by the Council on Criminal Justice have not returned to pre-pandemic numbers, the report said. The Twin Cities were not included in that study.

Homicides nationally are down 13% from last year and are just under 2019 levels. That's largely because of significant drops in big cities that tend to have higher homicide counts.

If the trend holds, a return to 2019 levels would mark a significant milestone, considering homicides jumped by nearly a third in 2020, the biggest single-year leap in U.S. history, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the number of people injured by gunfire remained higher in Minneapolis, increasing a small amount from last year through July. In St. Paul through June, nonfatal shootings dropped from last year and are just below 2019 levels.

Nationally, gun assaults — a broader term than nonfatal shootings — are down by almost a fifth from last year and are about equal to 2019.

Phelps said the differences between the Twin Cities could be explained by the heavier fallout from Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer.

"There was no other place where I think public trust in the police was as shaken," Phelps said. "There was no other place where the police department felt more embittered about the protests.

"Given the staffing challenges and the turnover and instability, I think it's really remarkable how much we had seen that decline [in homicides] in 2022 and 2023 despite all of that."

Vehicle crimes falling, still high

The nation went through large spikes in car theft in 2021 and 2022, much of it fueled by thieves exploiting a security design flaw in Kia and Hyundai models, while carjackings began a steady rise around the same time.

Both categories have taken big dives nationally and locally this year but have a ways to go before returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Car thefts in Minneapolis have dropped by almost a quarter this year, yet they remain more than double that of 2019 levels. Carjackings have dipped only slightly from last year.

In St. Paul, car theft has fallen by more than a third from last year. The department does not track carjackings.

Nationally this year, car theft has dropped by nearly a fifth and carjackings by a quarter. Both remain higher by two-thirds compared to 2019.

Mixed results with burglary, theft and robbery

Minneapolis and St. Paul are trending in opposite directions from last year in these categories.

Each city has seen only small fluctuations in the rate of burglary and theft. But robberies have jumped by a fifth in Minneapolis this year.

Phelps said she believes low staffing levels in the Minneapolis Police Department may be contributing to rises in these crime categories.

"The MPD has been pretty public that they have not been able to devote many resources to solving those kinds of crimes," she said.

Residential burglary, theft and robbery largely did not spike during the pandemic, with criminologists theorizing that stay-at-home orders and social distancing limited opportunities for those crimes. Still, all three have dropped this year.

Aggravated assaults up in Twin Cities

Aggravated assaults have followed a similar national trajectory as homicides, with both rising through 2021 and falling from there.

Aggravated assault is up in both Twin Cities this year. In Minneapolis through July, reports are about equal from the year before and up by more than a quarter from 2019, according to police data. Simple assault, which does not involve the use of a weapon, is down from 2023.

In St. Paul through June, aggravated assault was up from 2023 but is down from 2021, according to available police data. Simple assault increased from the year before.