Violent crime is up 6% overall in Charlotte, with homicides up more

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officials gave their third-quarter crime statistics report on Thursday. They said overall crime was flat — however, violent crime is up 6% with 5,662 offenses compared to 5,342 at the same time last year.

Property crime is down by 1%, while auto thefts were flat at 5,838 reported. CMPD also saw a slight increase in total calls for service with 294,695 calls in the third quarter. That’s up 3%.

Officials said juvenile arrests were flat during the quarter.

In the violent crime categories, aggravated assaults have increased by 7% with 4,631 offenses compared to 4,088 at the same time last year.

Homicides have seen a larger increase, with 83 so far this year compared to 65 at the same time in 2023.

Another contributor to violent crime’s uptick is organized retail crime. CMPD Major Ryan Butler said retail theft can be harmful to local businesses.

“Through the third quarter CMPD has investigated well over 900 incidents of organized retail crime here in Charlotte,” Butler said.

“These crimes impact our business partners and our community in many ways. Commonly targeted items include high-value goods, like designer clothing, electronics, power tools and medications.”

CMPD said there have been over 1,964 commercial burglaries, compared to over 1,497 in 2023.

CMPD also said it plans to launch the Civilian Crash Unit at the end of the year which will add additional units to respond to crashes. Civilians will now investigate non-injury crashes — a task that sworn officers spent over 31,000 hours responding to in 2022. Members of the unit will go through a four-week training course.