 "US crime data: Trump’s ‘hellhole’ cities don’t back his claim, homicide rate over 40% down")
Homicide rates have continued to decline across major US cities — by more than 40 per cent in some communities — during the first nine months of 2025, Axios reported, citing newly accessed data.
The findings come even as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly deployed or threatened to deploy National Guard troops to what he calls “hellhole” cities to combat crime.
But the numbers paint a very different picture, showing sharp drops in killings in several of those same cities, including Washington DC, Memphis, Chicago, and Portland.
Nationwide decline led by Buffalo, Denver, Orlando, and Seattle
Data from 67 law enforcement agencies compiled by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) showed that overall homicides fell by 19 per cent in the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period last year.
Some cities saw dramatic declines — Buffalo, Denver, Orlando, and Seattle recorded drops of more than 40 per cent, while Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, and Las Vegas saw reductions of 25 per cent or more. Portland, a city Trump once described as “like living in hell,” reported a 39 per cent decline, and Memphis — where National Guard troops were deployed in September — saw a 19 per cent fall in homicides.
Trump’s ‘hellhole’ claim at odds with data
The trend suggests that violent crime is not spiralling out of control as Trump has claimed. “Chicago is a hellhole right now. Baltimore is a hellhole right now,” Trump said in September. “We have the right to [call in the National Guard] because I have an obligation to protect this country.”
Yet Chicago recorded a 22.1 per cent decrease in overall violent crime in the first nine months of the year — the largest drop among major US cities — while Baltimore saw a 19.7 per cent decline, the fifth biggest. Although Chicago reported 573 homicides in 2024, the highest total in the nation, its homicide rate did not rank among the top 20 for large US cities.
White House defends Trump’s stance
A White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, defended Trump’s approach, saying, “President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of the American people — no amount of violent crime is justifiable. Chicago has had the most murders of any US city for 13 consecutive years — which has destroyed the lives of many law-abiding Americans.”
Long-term trends and outliers
Experts note that violent crime rates have been steadily falling since President Biden’s last two years in office, reversing the pandemic-era surge that began in 2020, Trump’s final year of his first term.
Still, not every city has followed the downward trend. Atlanta recorded a 19.4 per cent rise in violent crime — driven largely by robberies and assaults — while Columbus, Ohio, and several mid-sized metros also saw increases.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsMeanwhile, America’s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, posted significant declines, with homicides down 17 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively, alongside reductions in nearly all other categories of violent crime.
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