Homicides are up in Charlotte. Last year, 110 people were killed in Charlotte, up from 89 in 2023. It’s the highest number since 2020 and the second highest since at least 2009.
The city is bucking national trends, too. Across 85 cities, homicides dropped for the third straight year, down 17% since 2023. Other cities in North Carolina have been a mixed bag. Last year, Greensboro saw a 42% drop in homicides. Raleigh and Durham haven’t released their year-end homicide counts, however, both cities saw an increase in the first half of 2024 over the same six-month period the year before.
This comes as police departments across the country have struggled to recruit and retain officers. As of November 2024, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police had 300 vacancies, about 15% of its workforce. Dan Redford, president of Charlotte’s Fraternal Order of Police, said the profession took a major morale hit following the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020…