By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com
For the first time in a decade, Birmingham ended 2025 with less than 100 homicides.
There were 88 homicides in 2025, down from 152 in 2024 when the city’s homicide tally broke a record set in 1933.
The city’s year-end tally mirrors the national trend in what experts describe as a dramatic drop in crime and in killings.
“The number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies almost certainly fell at a historic clip in 2025, led by the largest one-year drop in murder,” said leading crime analyst Jeff Asher.
Birmingham fared even better, said Police Chief Michael Pickett.
“What I think is unique about what we’ve seen in Birmingham is while in other cities they are seeing reductions, their reductions are 25 percent, 30 percent,” Pickett said, “but in Birmingham, the majority of the year, we saw around 50 percent consistently for the vast majority of the year.”
The homicide reduction rate in the city ended with a 44 percent drop but peaked at 56 percent.
The last time Birmingham dipped below 100 was in 2015 with a year-end tally of 92.
From 2016 through 2025, homicides continued to mostly rise each year:
- 2016 — 104
- 2017 — 111
- 2018 — 107
- 2019 — 106
- 2020 — 122
- 2021 — 132
- 2022 — 144
- 2023 — 135
Among the 2025 Birmingham homicides was a man who was shot in 2024 and died in 2025.
Two of homicides happened at the hands of Birmingham police, two others were accidental and 11 were ruled justified.
Police agencies only have to report chargeable homicides to the FBI for statistical review and for 2025, that would be 72.
“Let me be clear, this is not a victory lap,” Mayor Randall Woodfin said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“Because even one homicide is too many,” he said. “Every number is a person. A family. A community changed forever.”
In all of Jefferson County, there were 128 homicides, including the 88 in Birmingham.
Those slayings happened in:
- Bessemer, 9
- Unincorporated Jefferson County, 8
- Hoover, 3 which included a shooting by law enforcement from an outside agency
- Center Point, 3
- Graysville, 2
- Tarrant, 2
- Midfield, 2
- Fairfield, 2
- Lipscomb, 2
- Homewood, 2, both of which were shootings by Homewood police officers
- Gardendale, 1
- Hueytown, 1
- Trussville, 1
- Brighton, 1
Additionally, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office recorded the death of a 45-year-old Birmingham man as a homicide after he was stabbed to death in William Donaldson Correction Facility.
AL.com does not include traffic fatalities where criminal charges were filed in the annual homicide county.
As of Dec. 29, the latest statistics available from the city, there were also decreases in the crime categories of robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and auto theft.
Thefts rose roughly 11 percent, statistics show. The city no longer posts numbers for the category of rape, though the reason is unclear.
In all, the city is reporting a 1.1 percent in all crime.
The drop in crime in 2025 continues a trend that began in 2023, accelerated in 2024, and likely would become historic in 2025, Asher has said.
‘We just can’t be in people’s homes’
Pickett said it’s significant that Birmingham is nearly doubling the national trend.
He and Woodfin attribute the success to the department’s strategy for fighting violent crime, and the execution of that strategy from the officers.
Pickett, who was 40 and the youngest person to lead the police department in the city’s history when he was initially appointed interim chief in October 2024, said his implementation of the Special Enforcement Team has played a major role in decreasing crime.
“They’re going after people who are known shooters, going after the areas where we know there is potential violent activity and engaging those individuals before they can act,” he said.
“The strategy is pursuing those once we know they’ve committed some type violent act whether it was a homicide, a discharging into an occupied dwelling or vehicle, and getting that person in custody.”
“When we had our homicides throughout the year,” the chief said, “we wanted to as quickly as possible identify those responsible and get that person in custody.”
Doing so, he said, prevents retaliation and prevents them being able to reoffend.
It also inspires confidence from the community.
“When the public sees how swift we are arresting people, how proactive we’re being, the criminals see that so they dial it back a little bit,” Pickett said, “and it gives the public confidence that if they have information they want to share with us to help us, they’re more willing to talk with us as well.”
In the record-breaking 2024, there were three mass shootings in the city and also multiple shootings involving clubs or establishments that operated at night.
“So we did add components to our Business Compliance Unit and we had much stronger enforcement through the year as it relates to nightclubs and bars to make sure they were in compliance with the public safety plan they presented to the City Council,” he said.
He said they also focused on smaller businesses such as food trucks and car washes.
“We noticed there were incidents, shootings, around illegally or improperly operating businesses and there was definitely more enforcement in that space (in 2025),” he said. “I think that helped.”
In 2025, especially in the last half of the year, Pickett said the major trend was domestic violence homicides.
“We saw our traditional conflict resolution, disagreements, things that sparked in the moment and not so much of an organized type of crime situation that we saw last year, and not so much retaliation,” Pickett said. “We did have a slightly different profile than we saw last year.”
Domestic homicides are always challenging.
“The main challenge is we just can’t be in people’s homes to prevent that,” he said.
