Cincinnati State of the City: Homicides Down, Shooting Injuries Up

Key Points

• Cincinnati homicides fell from 64 to 45; nonfatal shooting victims rose from 182 to 192.
• In 2025, 22.6% of shooting victims died, the highest January-October share since 2010.
• Adding strangulation turns a 1.5% drop in violent-crime reports into a 4.1% rise.

Cincinnati records support Mayor Aftab Pureval’s State of the City claims on homicides and record-low shootings. They also show more nonfatal shooting victims, increases in three police districts, and a homicide decline measured against an unusually lethal 2025.

Cincinnati homicides fell by 19 this year.

Nonfatal shooting victims rose by 10, and both numbers sit on page one of the same police report.

Mayor Aftab Pureval delivered his fifth State of the City address Tuesday night at the renovated First Financial Center downtown. Public safety led the speech. WCPO reported three claims: shooting victims are on pace for the fewest since 2010, homicides are down 25%, and property crime sits 13% below the three-year average.

Each claim holds up against city records. Property crime, for instance, totals 9,354 offenses in the police report, 9.5% below last year and 13.7% below the three-year average. The homicide number, meanwhile, undersells the police data. CPD’s STARS report, published Nov. 2 and covering Jan. 1 through Oct. 31, shows homicides down 29.7%. The 25% figure matches an older Oct. 15 release from City Hall.

However, the same records draw distinctions the headline numbers skip. Deaths fell far faster than shootings, and 2025 turns out to have been an unusually lethal year for shooting victims. Three police districts recorded more victims. Strangulation reports rose 42.5%, yet that category sits outside CPD’s violent-crime subtotal. Beyond policing, the numbers on transit, paving, pensions and housing depend on the baseline a reader picks.

Pureval acknowledged some of that tension. He said being proud of progress “is not the same as being satisfied,” WVXU reported.

State of the City crime figures show two trends

The STARS report gives these year-to-date comparisons through Oct. 31. CPD labels the statistics preliminary and subject to revision.

Public safety measure	2025	2026	Change
Homicides, all methods	64	45	-29.7%
Total shooting victims	235	228	-3.0%
Fatal shooting victims	53	36	-32.1%
Nonfatal shooting victims	182	192	+5.5%
Shooting incidents with victims	201	186	-7.5%

The city recorded fewer shooting incidents, and that improvement deserves credit. Yet the number of people shot fell only 3%, against a homicide drop near 30%. So why are fewer shooting victims dying?

Part of the answer lies in last year. The Exchange reviewed CPD’s victim-level shooting dataset, which runs back to 2010. In January through October 2025, for example, 22.6% of victims died. That was the highest share for those months in the 17-year series. From 2010 through 2024, the share ranged from 11.4% to 20.2%.

This year’s share is 15.9% in the dataset and 15.8% in STARS, almost identical to the median for 2010 through 2024. In other words, 2026 looks typical and 2025 looks like the outlier. That suggests the dramatic homicide decline reflects, in substantial part, a return to a more typical proportion of fatal shootings. The records do not explain why that proportion changed.

These are calculations from police records as downloaded Nov. 11, not hospital survival rates. Better trauma care remains possible, because UC Medical Center opened an expanded emergency department in July 2023. In addition, a CPD commander’s 2025 capstone project recommended exploring new options for field trauma care. Neither fact establishes why fewer victims died, since that question needs trauma-registry data, injury severity and transport times.

The shooting total is still historically low

The strongest counterargument comes from the same records. The public dataset shows 227 victims from January through October, one fewer than the earlier STARS snapshot. That is the lowest matched total since 2010. It is also about 25% below 2019 and 46% below 2020.

Nonfatal victims also remain low by historical standards. This year’s count is the second lowest in the series, behind only 2025. STARS puts it 19.9% below the three-year average. The State of the City claim of a record low is therefore supported, although the year is not over.

Cincinnati endured a severe spike during the pandemic. Homicides rose from 73 in 2019 to 94 in 2020, and shooting victims climbed from 356 to 486. Since then, the recovery has been substantial.

Avondale and Westwood moved against the citywide trend

Citywide totals conceal sharp differences among police districts. Victims fell steeply in District 1 and the Central Business Section. Meanwhile, Districts 2, 3 and 4 recorded increases.

Police area	2025 victims	2026 victims	Change	2026 vs. three-year average
Central Business Section	20	12	-40.0%	-28.0%
District 1	54	34	-37.0%	-53.6%
District 2	27	29	+7.4%	+14.5%
District 3	64	77	+20.3%	-11.2%
District 4	65	72	+10.8%	-20.0%

All figures come from the Nov. 2 STARS report and cover January through October. A handful of victims carry no district assignment. The last column matters because Districts 3 and 4 rose from 2025 but remain below their three-year averages. Only District 2 sits above its own.

Neighborhood records tell a similar story. Avondale went from 16 victims to 28, and Westwood rose from 9 to 14. Northside, likewise, climbed from 3 to 9. Those counts are small, so a single incident can move them.

Over-the-Rhine moved the other way, falling from 26 victims to 14. Downtown also dropped from 19 to 8. City Hall’s Oct. 15 release credits ACT for Cincy, its violence-reduction plan, for the District 1 results.

Those declines came in neighborhoods where Cincinnati has concentrated attention and money, which fits the city’s account without proving it. The Exchange has previously examined OTR crime patterns and the limits of flattering benchmarks. The data cannot show that shootings moved between districts. Instead, they show where the citywide story fails to describe daily life.

CPD’s violent-crime subtotal leaves out strangulation

The most consequential classification question in the police report involves a category most readers will never see in a headline. CPD’s four-category violent-crime subtotal fell from 1,427 reports to 1,406, a decline of 1.5%. The categories inside it moved in different directions.

• Robbery declined 18.1%, from 559 to 458.
• Aggravated assault was nearly flat, moving from 637 to 640.
• Rape-category reports rose 57.5%, from 167 to 263.

The rape figure requires care, though. An Exchange Oct. 24 investigation found that reports of older offenses explained about one-third of the increase. Updated records through Oct. 31 show the same pattern. Reports involving prior-year incidents rose from 23 to 54. That accounts for 31 of the 96 additional reports.

These are recorded reports, not a measure of offenses. Reporting practices and coding decisions can move the totals. Still, two-thirds of the increase has no such explanation in the public file.

Strangulation is the larger issue. CPD logged 352 strangulation reports through October, up from 247 a year earlier, a 42.5% increase.

The STARS report prints strangulation on its own line, below the violent-crime total. A footnote calls it a subcategory of aggravated assault. However, the listed aggravated-assault codes omit Ohio’s strangulation statute, which took effect in April 2023. The city’s public crime dataset, meanwhile, labels strangulation a violent crime. STARS itself adds the category into its Part One crime total, just not into the violent line.

As an alternative calculation, the Exchange counted unique report numbers in the public dataset. That method differs from CPD’s, which counts offenses, so the comparison needs a consistent base. Unique reports in the four headline categories fell from 1,388 to 1,367, the same 1.5% decline CPD shows. Adding strangulation lifts the count from 1,615 to 1,681, an increase of about 4.1%. Only 38 of this year’s strangulation reports also appear in a headline category, so the overlap is small.

The alternative is not an official index, and it does not make CPD’s subtotal wrong. Nothing here shows intent. It does show how much one category shapes the impression: measured the same way, a 1.5% decline becomes a 4.1% increase once strangulation counts. Seven council members have already asked the administration to explain the rape and strangulation numbers.

Shots-fired calls fell 13%

Another limit involves gunfire that hits property and no person. CPD’s shooting dataset counts only people struck. A bullet through a window produces no entry there.

That gap alone does not show that gunfire is rising out of view. Dispatch records cut against that idea. The city’s calls-for-service data show shots-fired calls fell from 4,985 to 4,333 through October. That is a 13.1% drop. Adding calls dispatched as shootings produces a 12.8% decline.

Dispatch data have limits. Several callers can report one incident, and some calls involve no confirmed gunfire. Even so, nothing in these records supports a claim that CPD manipulates its statistics. An audit would need original and final classifications, narratives and revision histories.

Cincinnati’s 2025 survey dropped its crime-victim question

Police reports cannot count crimes that residents never report, and Cincinnati’s own research shows a widening distance between official statistics and public confidence.

The city’s 2025 resident survey reached 1,234 households in late 2025, with a margin of error of 2.78 points. Only 32% said they were satisfied with their overall feeling of safety, down from 40% in 2023. Satisfaction with the city’s efforts to prevent crime slipped from 28% to 25%, and satisfaction with police protection fell from 50% to 40%. Large cities in the survey firm’s benchmark averaged 53% on feeling safe.

Those answers predate this year’s decline, so they say nothing about 2026 crime. They do explain why a mayor can present encouraging numbers to residents who remain unconvinced.

City Manager Sheryl Long sent council a September memo on resident focus groups. The city held four sessions with 41 residents, so the findings are anecdotes, not measurements. One West Side participant said police districts had grown too big to respond. The resident added, “a lot of times… I don’t even bother to call.” Another described a two-hour wait after a burglary.

The same memo carries a counterpoint. On satisfaction with police response times, Cincinnati outscored a similarly sized Midwest peer city, 38% to 30%.

A second gap sits in the questionnaire itself. The city’s 2023 survey of 1,235 households asked whether anyone at home had been a crime victim that year, and 19.9% of those who answered said yes. By contrast, the 2025 questionnaire contains no such question, and the city has not said why.

Without a consistent victimization measure, Cincinnati cannot prove that falling reports equal falling crime in every category. Population loss does not explain the drop either. Census estimates show the city lost 488 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, about 0.16%.

A national decline complicates the credit

Cincinnati’s progress also coincides with a national one. The FBI release for 2025 estimated an 18.1% decline in murder. A Council on Criminal Justice mid-year update found homicide rates down another 18% across 30 cities in early 2026.

Those figures do not erase local work. District 1’s results are consistent with a successful intervention, though they cannot isolate what ACT for Cincy contributed on its own. Success in one place also needs a wider check. A CPD evaluation of youth disorder found improvement at Government Square and likely displacement elsewhere. At Oakley Station, monthly youth-related calls rose from 3.9 in 2023 to 12.7 by 2025.

Crediting a specific program for the citywide decline therefore requires an evaluation that accounts for national trends. The city has not published one.

Transit and paving: the baseline decides the headline

Baselines matter just as much outside the State of the City’s safety section. Federal Transit Administration monthly ridership records show Metro logged 7.32 million bus boardings in 2020 and 13.18 million in 2025, an 80% gain. However, 2020 was the year transit collapsed. Metro recorded 13.24 million boardings in 2019, so 2025 landed 0.5% below the pre-pandemic level and 1% below 2024.

The newer numbers look better. January through September 2026 ran 5.8% above the same months of 2019, which is growth and not mere recovery. Boardings count trips, though, and not individual riders.

Street money follows the same pattern. The Cincinnati Southern Railway trust has performed: its October statement lists a portfolio of $1.902 billion as of Oct. 31. The FY2027 capital budget draws $58 million from it. Before the sale, the city collected about $26 million a year in lease payments, according to WVXU.

A fund’s value still differs from money appropriated, and both differ from finished pavement. A September presentation from the transportation department projects 112 lane miles in FY2027. The department says that would beat the Smale Commission goal of 100 lane miles for the first time in years.

That total combines two treatments. For FY2028, the department forecasts 104 lane miles: 48 of rehabilitation and 56 of surface treatment, which its own slides say deteriorates more quickly. More than half the planned mileage is therefore the cheaper, shorter-lived fix.

The department also projects rehabilitation costs falling from $635,900 per lane mile to $250,000, crediting smaller jobs, more bidders and less curb replacement. That may stretch dollars sensibly. But it is a projection built on a narrower scope, not proof of identical work at 60% less cost.

A balanced budget and a pension target with conditions

The approved FY2027 General Fund balances at $624.3 million, the city’s budget summary shows. Closing a $29.5 million gap took $8.5 million in vacancy savings and $3.3 million from delaying a fire recruit class. The city says fire staffing exceeds its budgeted complement, so service should not suffer.

Council also approved a pension plan in February that targets full funding by 2049, with a one-time $50 million payment and higher contributions. That date is a projection. The retirement system’s latest actuarial valuation put the funded ratio at 68.1%, with an $863 million shortfall.

The valuation also shows how fragile such dates are. It rests on a long-term assumption of 7.5% average annual investment returns. If returns average 6.5% instead, the actuary found, the system would still be 68% funded in 2053. That scenario used the contribution rate in place before the new plan.

One fiscal idea went unmentioned in the State of the City. In January, Pureval proposed an income-tax increase for public safety and anti-poverty work, then shelved the 2026 push in late July.

Downtown, housing and climate: commitments are not outcomes

Pureval highlighted The Banks and a cap over Fort Washington Way. The cap has a $25 million federal grant that requires a $25 million match, and that money covers only a first phase between Vine and Walnut streets.

Other downtown wins carry fine print. Council approved a $50 million loan for the convention hotel, and WVXU and WCPO reported that the city will forgive any balance left after 30 years. Paychex named the $36 million Saks conversion a dual headquarters, but the same Paychex announcement said the company will keep its Norwood office. The announcement does not say how many jobs are new, how many moved from Norwood and how many simply stayed. A job that crosses the city line adds to Cincinnati’s tax base without adding one to the region. By comparison, Valvoline Global’s incentive deal names its terms. Local 12, citing city documents, reported 54 new jobs and 110 retained ones, figures the city can check against payroll later.

Housing permits tell two stories. The city’s public permit dataset shows 164 new-building permits issued from Jan. 1 through Nov. 4, down from 178 in the same period of 2025. Yet the dwelling units recorded on those permits nearly doubled, from 431 to 839.

Three projects explain half of that total: a 227-unit building in Walnut Hills and two Oakley buildings that together hold 203 units. These counts include commercial permits, where most apartment buildings sit, and they rely on the city’s unit field. None of them counts a home someone can move into yet.

The same distance separates BuildReady from the rent a Cincinnati family pays today. The $2 million federally funded program offers six pre-approved designs, and Pureval said two projects will break ground soon. Likewise, the Cincinnati Development Fund reported financing 948 income-restricted units in its last fiscal year, 640 in Cincinnati and 308 outside city limits. Those are loans closed, not doors opened.

The longest-range promise is the Climate Migration Readiness Plan, which the State of the City also promoted. Its headline number comes from the Cincinnati Regional Chamber’s outlook, which the city commissioned. The high scenario adds 525,971 residents by 2050.

That figure covers the 15-county region and not the city, whose population stood near 314,000 in 2025. It also includes broader domestic relocation. Moreover, the Chamber’s authors call that scenario less likely than a modest one of 166,484 new residents.

Preparing drainage, housing and transit can serve current residents either way, as East Side flooding this summer showed. Spending decisions should still separate documented needs from a scenario its own authors call less likely.

The next test sits in the city’s own records

Pureval had real accomplishments to put in a State of the City speech. Cincinnati has fewer homicides, far fewer shooting victims than during the pandemic and far fewer shootings in District 1. The railway trust has grown, and Metro ridership has passed its 2019 pace.

But the records also set limits. Nonfatal shooting victims increased. Three districts recorded more victims. Rape-category and strangulation reports rose sharply, and strangulation sits outside the violent-crime subtotal.

Several questions remain open. Why did the fatality share swing so far in two years? How often do residents skip calling police? How much credit belongs to local programs? On infrastructure and housing, the proof will be finished streets, verified payroll and occupied homes.

Page one of the October STARS report remains the place to start. It records 19 fewer homicides and 10 more nonfatal shooting victims. The mayor has good numbers to report, and the same document holds troubling ones. Both describe Cincinnati in 2026, and both belong in the city’s account of itself.

FAQs

Did homicides really fall 25% in Cincinnati in 2026?

Yes, and by more. Mayor Pureval cited a 25% decline, which matches an Oct. 15 city release. The Cincinnati Police Department’s Nov. 2 STARS report shows 45 homicides from Jan. 1 through Oct. 31, against 64 in 2025. That is a 29.7% drop. CPD calls the figures preliminary.

If homicides fell, why did nonfatal shooting victims rise?

Fewer victims died. Total shooting victims fell only 3%, from 235 to 228, while nonfatal victims rose from 182 to 192. In 2025, 22.6% of victims died, the highest January-October share since 2010. This year’s 15.9% matches the 2010-2024 median. Police records cannot explain why.

Which Cincinnati police districts saw more shooting victims in 2026?

Districts 2, 3 and 4. District 3 rose from 64 victims to 77, District 4 from 65 to 72 and District 2 from 27 to 29. District 1 fell from 54 to 34. Districts 3 and 4 still sit below their three-year averages. District 2 sits above.

Does CPD count strangulation as violent crime?

Not in its violent-crime subtotal. The STARS report lists strangulation separately: 352 reports through October, up 42.5%. Counting unique reports, The Cincinnati Exchange found the four headline categories fell 1.5%, from 1,388 to 1,367. Adding strangulation produced a 4.1% increase, from 1,615 to 1,681. CPD does include strangulation in its Part One total.

Has Metro ridership really grown 80%?

From 2020, yes. Federal Transit Administration records show bus boardings rose from 7.32 million in 2020 to 13.18 million in 2025. But 2019 had 13.24 million, so 2025 sat slightly below the pre-pandemic level. January through September 2026 ran 5.8% above the same months of 2019.