MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS | Minnesota Violent Crime Falls to Pre-Pandemic Level as Murders Drop Sharply in 2025

New state data show 130 criminal homicides last year, down from 172 in 2024, while carjackings and several major property-crime categories also declined

ST. PAUL, MN (September 11, 2026). Violent crime in Minnesota fell again in 2025, bringing the statewide rate back to a level not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic and extending a decline from the elevated violence recorded earlier in the decade.

New data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety show law-enforcement agencies recorded 130 criminal homicides in 2025, compared with 172 in 2024.

That represents 42 fewer criminal homicides in a single year, a decline of approximately 24 percent.

The state's data distinguish criminal homicides from all deaths initially classified as homicides. Minnesota recorded 139 homicide deaths during 2025, but nine were determined to be justifiable, leaving 130 classified as criminal homicides or murders.

The decline was particularly visible in Minnesota's two largest cities.

Minneapolis recorded 62 murders in 2025, down from 77 during the previous year. That represents 15 fewer murders, or a decline of approximately 19.5 percent.

Saint Paul recorded an even steeper reduction, falling from 26 murders in 2024 to 15 in 2025. That amounts to a decline of more than 42 percent.

The statewide numbers are significant because they extend a trend rather than documenting a single-year statistical change.

Minnesota experienced a substantial increase in violent crime during the early years of the decade, particularly during and immediately after the disruption associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The newly released figures indicate that the statewide violent-crime rate has now returned to a level not seen since 2019.

Homicide was not the only category to improve.

Reported carjackings, including attempted carjackings, declined 31 percent in 2025.

That is especially notable in the Twin Cities, where carjackings emerged as a major public-safety concern earlier in the decade and prompted changes in policing, prosecution and juvenile-crime intervention.

Property crime also declined.

State officials reported decreases in categories including burglary, larceny, motor-vehicle theft and arson.

The report also provides new information about interactions between police and the public.

Six people were killed by law-enforcement officers in use-of-force incidents during 2025. That compares with 17 during 2024, a reduction of 11 deaths.

Assaults against law-enforcement officers declined by 1.3 percent.

Reported bias crimes, however, remained approximately level with the previous year, meaning the broader decline in violent crime was not reflected equally across every category measured by the state.

The new statistics require some caution in interpretation.

Crime reports measure offenses known to law enforcement. They do not capture every crime that occurs, particularly offenses that victims do not report. Year-to-year changes can also be affected by reporting practices, agency participation, population changes and differences among individual communities.

Statewide declines therefore do not mean every Minnesota city or neighborhood experienced the same improvement.

That distinction is especially important across the Twin Cities metropolitan area, where crime patterns can vary considerably between jurisdictions and even between neighborhoods within the same city.

Still, the 2025 numbers provide evidence of a sustained statewide movement away from the violent-crime levels recorded earlier in the decade.

For Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the homicide figures are particularly consequential. Together, Minnesota's two largest cities recorded 103 murders in 2024. In 2025, that combined figure fell to 77.

That is 26 fewer murders in the two cities in one year.

The statewide total fell by 42.

The numbers do not resolve Minnesota's continuing debates over policing, prosecution, prevention, juvenile crime, guns, addiction or the social conditions associated with violence. Nor do statewide improvements erase the consequences for families and neighborhoods where violent crimes continue to occur.

They do, however, establish an important factual baseline.

By the end of 2025, Minnesota was recording fewer murders, fewer carjackings and lower levels of several major property crimes, while its overall violent-crime rate had returned to a level last seen before the pandemic.

That is a substantially different public-safety picture from the one Minnesota faced several years earlier.

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