Chicago is about to end 2025 with fewer homicides than any year since 1965 when we had 395. With 360 homicides through October, per Chicago Police Department numbers, we likely won’t beat that 1965 number, but we should end up with a total in the low 400s. That’s great news.
But celebration should come with caution: We’ve been here before. Twenty years ago, in 2004, Chicago’s homicides totaled 448, just slightly above this year’s level. That was a big decline over the years since 1992 when we had 940. Not as dramatic as New York City’s decline from more than 2,020 to 570 in that same period but at a slower pace — we were on the same declining track.
The problem is that in Chicago, unlike New York and many other cities, the decline in violence leveled off. Total homicides stayed in the mid-400s for the next 11 years. The collapse of police-community trust following the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video sent the 2016 total skyrocketing up to almost 800, and after a few ups and downs, we are now declining from that level.
Chicago is well positioned today to maintain the decline in violence, but there is nothing inevitable about it.
We now have an exceptionally strong police superintendent, Larry Snelling. In the years of progress starting in the ’90s, we had a succession of strong police leaders: Matt Rodriguez, Terry Hillard and Phil Cline. Unfortunately, they were followed by a string of weak superintendents that started in 2008 with Jody Weiss, a former FBI agent unsuited to the job, and ended with David Brown, the former Dallas police chief who never gained the confidence of the Chicago police force. (Five interim months under Charlie Beck, former Los Angeles chief, after Eddie Johnson was forced out in scandal in late 2019, were an interval of strong leadership.) In contrast, Snelling’s visible competence and command during the 2024 Democratic National Convention gave him immediate credibility, and he has continued to gain in strength and confidence both with the public and within the department.
We also have a strong Cook County state’s attorney, Eileen O’Neill Burke. Up to 2008, the state’s attorney was Richard Devine, a highly capable prosecutor, as was his immediate successor, Anita Alvarez. But Alvarez’s successor, Kim Foxx, completely lost the confidence of the police who increasingly mistrusted her capacity and commitment to effective prosecution. Burke, who took office at the end of last year, brought energy and an instant boost in confidence among police and other law enforcement agencies.
Our federal and state law enforcement agencies are also strong. Although we’ve not had a confirmed U.S. attorney in over two years, the office has continued to emphasize prosecuting major gun crimes and gun trafficking. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and State Police Director Brendan Kelly have focused heavily on reducing the availability of illegal guns with new laws, statewide intelligence programs and enforcement actions.
Chicago law enforcement agencies are now cooperating on gun violence at the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, developed under the leadership of Christopher Amon, an exceptionally able agent in charge of the Chicago office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Starting last year, personnel from the police, the state’s attorney’s office and other agencies are stationed at the center, where they work together, using gun tracing and other intelligence, to investigate and prosecute gun crimes and gun trafficking.
The collective quality of Chicago’s law enforcement leadership, the commitment of agencies to use their resources to reduce violence in the city and their level of coordination are now the strongest they have been in decades, possibly ever. We also now have a network of community violence intervention programs supplementing law enforcement in high-crime communities.
Even with these strengths, two risks stand out as threats to a continuing decline in violence.
Editorial: A frank conversation with Superintendent Larry Snelling, Chicago’s top cop
One risk is a lack of political support for critical law enforcement initiatives. An example is Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to terminate the ShotSpotter surveillance system over the objection of Snelling, who said it enabled faster response to gun crimes that saved lives and increased likely capture of perpetrators. An imminent test of political support is likely when Snelling receives a long-awaited report on the allocation of Chicago police resources. The report will almost certainly call for shifting more officers to the high-crime neighborhoods where they are most needed — something Cline wanted to do 20 years ago but did not have the political support to deal with resistance from areas where resources are now overallocated.
A second risk is a setback in the continuing effort to build trust between the police and communities. The skyrocketing homicide rate after the McDonald video release showed how devastating a decline in trust can be. A Justice Department investigation following that debacle led to a consent decree, and Snelling has expressed a strong commitment to compliance. But Chicago is a big city with a huge Police Department; patterns of behavior are hard to change and there will almost certainly be new challenges to maintaining that necessary trust.
How low can our numbers go? Nothing in Chicago’s economic or other conditions keeps us from continuing to decline as other cities have done. The poverty level in New York went up in the ’90s while homicides fell; economic growth follows the decline of violence in a neighborhood but is not a precondition to it. New York City, over three times our size, is on track to have about 250 homicides this year; Boston, about a quarter of our size, will have about 30. A reasonable goal for Chicago might be 100.
But the objective is not a number. The objective is a city in which residents of every neighborhood can go about their lives without fear of violence. Our progress in violence reduction does not have to stop again, and it should not until we reach that goal.
John Schmidt, a former United States associate attorney general, is a member of the executive board for the Illinois Gun Violence Prevention Political Action Committee (G-PAC).
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
