Chicago City Wire

Speaking at the U.S. Conference of Mayors on April 28, Mayor Brandon Johnson said that in light of recent murder statistics "everybody agrees" that safety cannot be achieved through policing alone.

Johnson touted the city's first quarter crime statistics, which revealed Chicago's 2025 murder rate so far is the lowest since 2014—April’s 20 murders the lowest since 1962.

“It’s not just about more police officers. It’s not about just simply better technology,” Johnson said. “It’s also about making sure that we’re taking the full force of government towards creating safer communities.”

Commenting on the crime figures, Jason Johnson, former Deputy Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department and now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF), said it appears as though the falling murder rate not just in Chicago but in most major urban centers is sustainable. But rather than give elected officials the credit, he says that most of the credit belongs to the police.

“I think police are the main drivers of this, which is supported in the data,” Johnson told Chicago City Wire in an email.

“I would also say that in Baltimore (especially) and Chicago (to a more limited degree at this point), the transition from outrageously progressive, Soros-controlled prosecutor to a more traditional prosecutor is making a difference.”

Billionaire George Soros has donated millions to the campaigns of soft-on-crime prosecutors in the nation’s major cities. In December, one of the top prosecutors in his stable, Kim Foxx, was replaced by Eileen O’Neill-Burke who ran for Cook County State’s Attorney on a tough-on-crime platform.

This past Sunday, Burke participated in the 93rd annual St. Jude Memorial March, a tribute to the 606 Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty. In her eight years in office, Foxx never appeared at the March.

Micky Horstman, spokesman for the Illinois Policy Institute, which tracks violent crime in the city, agreed with Johnson that the decline in homicide appears sustainable.

“The decline in homicides so far in 2025 appears to be more than a blip—it’s shaping up to be a notable and positive shift from recent years in Chicago,” Horstman told Chicago City Wire in an email. “Not only did April numbers hit a low but homicides through the first four months of the year ranked 21st out of the past 25 years according to city data.”

He added that the “drop may reflect some of the significant changes implemented under Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and newly elected Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen Burke, and as we enter the summer months—historically the most violent stretch of the year—we’ll get a clearer picture of whether this trend holds.”

In a recent commentary published in the New York Post, Johnson and his colleague Sean Kennedy cited statistics from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, that show murders rose 44% from 2019 to 2021 across 70 of America’s largest cities.

“But then something happened – big city murders fell dramatically from their peak from over 9,600 in 2021 to 6,900 in 2024 – a 39% decline,” they wrote.

“What explains the dramatic rise and equally shocking reversal? Policing – first the lack thereof and then its return.”