Homicides in Los Angeles were down 19% in 2025, dropping to the lowest number the city has seen in 60 years, in line with national downward crime trends, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

“The data in this year’s report shows that homicides in Los Angeles are down, both in total number and as a percentage compared to last year. In 2025, there were 230 homicides, a reduction of 19% from the year before, when the city experienced 284 homicides. This is the lowest number of homicides since 1966,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.

McDonnell, speaking about the city’s 2025 crime statistics at a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 29, attributed the reduction to data and intelligence-driven policing, violence reduction strategies, collaboration with other law enforcement and public safety agencies and dedicated robbery-homicide detectives.

Of last year’s homicides, 156 of them, or 68%, were cleared by police. An additional 76 homicide cases from previous years were closed in 2025.

“Context matters. Los Angeles is a complex city. Crime trends are influenced by many factors beyond policing, including economic condition, population changes, substance abuse, homelessness, legislative decisions, and access to services. Policing plays a critical role in public safety, but it is one of a much larger system,” McDonnell said.

The report showed that shooting victim numbers also declined; 899 in 2025 compared to 981 in 2024, which McDonnell connected to an increase in gun seizures, with the agency seizing 8,650 firearms in 2025, an increase of more than 1,000 weapons compared to the year before.

“Other violent crime categories show mixed results, and property crime and quality of life issues remain real concerns for many Angelenos. We’re not minimizing those challenges, and we’re certainly not ignoring them,” he said.

He addressed burglaries in the city, noting that pattern detection, proactive policing and “precision policing”– the practice of “using crime data, trend analysis, and real-time intelligence to deploy resources where they have the greatest impact,” are important for the department’s work against property crimes.

“Through Metropolitan Division’s efforts, 109 total burglary arrests were made with 26 burglary crews identified and 22 firearms recovered in the process,” he said.

The department’s 2026 initiatives are tech-forward, with a real-time crime center and expansion of the drone first responder program being priorities.

Though there is no one reason for a drop in homicides, McDonnell said he has seen the department and other agencies across the nation re-engage with the public and a resurgence of proactive policing.

“There’s no definitive answer, just my own experience. Post 2020, there was a movement where police were not supported throughout the nation, and we saw people step away from the profession. We saw people hesitant to interact. The level of proactive policing became much more reactive, and when that happens, you see crime go up, generally speaking. We have seen our officers here re-engage and be able to get back in,” he said.

While the LAPD does not engage in immigration enforcement, there were fears that widespread immigration enforcement operations by other agencies in Los Angeles could affect crime reporting, but that has not been the case, at least on a large scale, according to McDonnell.

“Our fear when we saw what happened this summer was that that would change. We’ve tried as best we can to monitor the numbers and we don’t believe that there’s been a substantial impact,” McDonnell said. “We’re still getting reports, particularly domestic violence cases that we were most fearful of and other cases. So while there may have been some lack of reporting, I think we’re on track going in the right direction and trying to regain support in communities that might have waned or been lost.”