FACT CHECK: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Claims Most Crime is Down in Chicago

CLAIM: Aside from murder, crime is down in most categories in the City of Chicago, despite popular media perceptions.

VERDICT: FALSE. While some crimes are down, others have risen with murder, including theft and criminal sexual assault.

Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed Monday that other than murder, the city’s crime rates are mostly trending down. But the Chicago Police Department’s own numbers disagree, showing that crime is up in many other categories.

During a Monday press conference, Lightfoot addressed the fact that the Windy City seems poised to surge well beyond 800 murders this year for the first time in decades. During her response to the question, though, Lightfoot made the false statement that only murder is up while other crime is down.

Lightfoot dismissed the soaring murder rate as merely in keeping with rising rates in other cities. She went on to claim that crime in most other categories are at 25-year lows, Crain’s reporter A.D. Quig said.

Q for Mayor Lori Lightfoot today about Chicago soon surpassing 800 homicides. "This is a very challenging time," she says, but New York, St. Louis, Austin are also seeing high crime. "We're focused on gangs, we're focused on guns." Every other crime category is at 25-year-lows.

— A.D. Quig (@ad_quig) December 6, 2021

But the Chicago Police Department’s own statistics shatter Lightfoot’s claim that crime is down in most other categories.

CPD numbers, for instance, show that sexual assault is up 27%, theft is up 19 percent, and car theft is up six percent. The numbers also show that non-fatal shootings are up 8.2 percent compared to this time last year.

Moreover, carjackings — which is a category all its own because of the violence of the crime — are up by almost one third, with more than 1,250 carjackings reported this year. And there are still three weeks to go before the year ends.

Robbery, aggravated battery, and burglary have shown declines. Burglary dropped 26%, which may be a result of the fact that more people are at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The mayor’s false statement came on the heels of yet another deadly weekend. Thirty-six Chicagoans were shot, with six of them killed, amid the city’s out of control violence.

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