Gun violence down in South Bend, crime data shows

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- Violent crime is on the decline in South Bend. New data released Wednesday by the police department shows total shootings with injuries are down more than 50 percent since the pandemic spike in 2020.

When it comes to deadly shootings across the city, the same trend holds. There were only five fatal shootings in South Bend last year, compared to19 in 2023 and a five-year high of 26 the year before that. There were 17 in 2021 and 23 in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, when violence jumped nationwide.

There were 62 total criminally assaulted shootings in South Bend last year, half the total of 124 reported in 2022, and down even more from the peak of 133 back in 2020.

"If I seem a little excited and celebratory, I am-- analytically," said South Bend Police Chief, Scott Ruszkowski. "But it's above zero; I know this is cliche coming from me but it is, it's above zero, we want zero."

Last year, calls for service reached the highest total the police department has seen in five years.

"What it does mean, to me anyway, is people are more confident and trusting in their police department, and they are more apt to call to report something," Ruszkowski said.

In fact, most crime went down in the city.

"For 2024, we had an overall 19.64 reduction in part 1 crimes," Ruszkowski said.

Part one crimes include: rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, arson, motor vehicle theft, and homicide.

"Three years in a row now we've had a reduction in part 1 crimes, contrary to the comments made on media, social media."

But do people actually feel safer? ABC57's Annie Kate asked Mayor James Mueller if public perception matches the hard data.

"No, I mean, of course not, because there's still all this trauma," he said, "the years preceding that were especially violent in our recent history."

He says the only way people will feel safer is with time if these trends continue.

"The fear will shoot up like a rocket, and even as things go down, it kind of goes down as a feather," Mueller said.

There were 11,946 traffic stops in the city in 2024, an average of 32.7 stops a day, and police want to keep those numbers high, putting extra patrols on traffic shifts to further enforce safe driving.