Albuquerque has investigated 59 homicides this year through Nov. 11 — a 32% plunge from the same period last year and the city’s third straight year of declining homicides.
City officials touted the decline Nov. 10 at a press conference where Mayor Tim Keller and Police Chief Harold Medina released third-quarter crime statistics showing decreases across major crime categories.
“Homicides are down 32%, which includes this weekend’s homicide,” APD spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said.
The city has investigated 59 homicides this year, down from 87 by this time in 2024, according to APD Deputy Director of Communications Rebecca Atkins. Albuquerque recorded 96 homicides in 2024, 99 in 2023 and a record 121 in 2022.
October’s three homicides matched the city’s lowest monthly total since at least July 2024, which Medina called “our best month in a decade,” according to KOAT.
Monthly totals for 2025 include three in January, two in February, six each in March and April, 10 in May, eight in June, seven in July, eight in August, five in September, three in October and one in November as of Nov. 11, according to APD.
Keller credited “investment in technology,” including gunshot detection and license plate readers, along with increased civilian staff that freed up officers for “good old-fashioned police work.”
“Not only do we have fixed LPRs [license plate readers] across the city, every marked unit now has a dash cam with LPR capabilities. Within the first two weeks of the program, it helped solve a homicide by capturing a plate while officers were responding to a shots-fired call,” Medina said. “Building a technology-based department that connects all the dots, rather than having scattered tools, has made a huge difference in our ability to fight crime and is a big reason for the reductions we’ve seen.”
APD has solved 84% of this year’s homicide cases and cleared 25 cold cases from previous years, according to Atkins. So far in 2025, 111 murder suspects have been arrested, charged or are deceased — the third straight year the number has topped 100.
Albuquerque’s 32% drop in homicides mirrors declines in other large cities, city officials say, citing Major Cities Chiefs Association data.
The homicide drop follows Albuquerque’s 2022 peak and comes as public safety remains a central issue in the 2025 mayoral race. Challenger Darren White argued at an October forum that 2024’s homicide total still represents “a crisis” compared to just 30 homicides in the city in 2014.
Glad to see the homicide rate decreasing and that the APD is solving more homicides with the help of technology, but the fact that other cities are seeing a similar decreasing trend in homicides suggest that it may have nothing to do with anything APD is doing. Are those cities also investing in similar technology on the same time scale in a way that suggests correlation? What are their solve rates compared to APD? Should we believe the numbers APD gives?