Violent crime in the first three months of the year is down in Durham compared to the same time span in 2024.
The city defines violent crime as homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults. In the first three months of the year, Durham had 349 violent crimes in 2025 compared to 451 in 2024.
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Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews presented the findings on Thursday before the city council.
“Immediately, what you notice is that we saw an overall reduction in our … violent crime totals,” Andrews said.
However, the number of homicides in the first three months of 2025 increased compared to the first three months of last year.
Here’s a look at the data from the last three years:
| Violent crimes | 3-year average | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2024-25 % change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homicide | 9 | 13 | 6 | 9 | +50.0% |
| Rape | 41 | 50 | 40 | 34 | -15.0% |
| Robbery | 107 | 100 | 118 | 103 | -12.7% |
| Aggravated assault | 254 | 272 | 287 | 203 | -29.3% |
| Violent crime total | 412 | 435 | 451 | 349 | -22.6% |
Durham police response times
In the first quarter of 2025, it took Durham police an average of seven minutes and 12 seconds to response to an emergency call. The Durham Police Department’s goal is five minutes and 48 seconds.
“We are really creeping up on our response times, and we just have not hit our goal in several years,” Andrews said.
Here’s a look at the average response time to emergency calls by year.
2024: 7 minutes
2023: 6 minutes and 29 seconds
2022: 6 minutes and 33 seconds
2021: 6 minutes and 14 seconds
2020: 5 minutes and 45 seconds
2019: 6 minutes and 1 second
2018: 6 minutes and 5 seconds
2017: 6 minutes and 12 seconds
2016: 6 minutes and 20 seconds
“We’ve made numerous efforts to divert lower-priority calls for service from our frontline officers, so we are really pleased with the rate of folks that are filing reports through [Police to Citizen], which is our web-based system of filing reports,” Andrews said.
Durham police responded to 43.8% of calls in less than five minutes. The goal is to respond to 57% of emergency calls in less than five minutes.
Durham police staffing
As of Thursday, Andrews said Durham police have filled 388 positions out of 533 sworn officer positions available (72.8% staffing).
Andrews said the Durham Police Department was at about 71% staffing of sworn officers a year ago.
As of the end of March, the department had 128 non-sworn personnel filled out of 146 positions available (87.7% staffing).
“We are seeing bigger academies,” Andrews said. “We are seeing less folks leave.”
Andrews said fewer officers are leaving the Durham Police Department for other law enforcement agencies. On Thursday, she also cited several recruiting initiatives to help with the department's staffing.
Durham shooting incidents
On Thursday before the Durham City Council, Andrews also presented data about shooting incidents in the first three months.
Shooting incidents
2024: 147
2025: 130
People shot
2024: 40
2025: 31
Fatal
2024: 5
2025: 5
Non-fatal
2024: 35
2025: 26
Durham property crime declines compared to 2024
| Property crimes | 3-year average | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2024-25 % change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burglary | 302 | 316 | 315 | 275 | -12.7% |
| Larceny | 1,811 | 1,700 | 1,904 | 1,828 | -4.0% |
| Motor theft vehicle | 378 | 297 | 455 | 382 | -16.0% |
| Property crime total | 2,491 | 2,313 | 2,674 | 2,485 | -7.1% |
Andrews said authorities recovered about 314 of the 382 stolen vehicles in the first three months of 2025.
“Hyundais, Kias and Toyotas, in that order, are what we see as the higher incidents of vehicles being stolen,” Andrews said.
Andrews the stolen cars are not one-off crimes.
“What we’re seeing are rings of networks of thieves that are coming in and working as a group,” Andrews said.
Andrews said the thieves often break into cars and use them to commit other crimes.
On Thursday, Andrews also showed Durham has had 127 guns stolen through the first three months of the year.
“That was above our trajectory of previous years,” Andrews said.
Here’s a look at the totals by year:
2024: 568 guns stolen
2023: 441 guns stolen
Andrews said 73% of the 127 guns stolen in the first three months of 2025 were taken from a car.
Juvenile offenses for January - March
Andrews did not speak about juvenile offenses on Thursday before the city council.
However, city documents show a breakdown of the types of offenses committed by juveniles in the first three months of 2025.
| Offense/age | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggravated assault | 1 | ||||||
| All other offenses | 1 | 2 | 10 | 25 | 5 | 10 | 53 |
| Burglary | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |||
| Driving while impaired | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Drug violations | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Embezzlement | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Fraud | 7 | 16 | 6 | 3 | 32 | ||
| Homicide | 2 | ||||||
| Larceny | 1 | 11 | 27 | 7 | 8 | 54 | |
| Robbery | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Simple assault | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 | |||
| Stolen property | 1 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 24 |
| Vandalism | 3 | 7 | 4 | 14 | |||
| Weapon violations | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 9 | ||
| Grand total | 3 | 6 | 41 | 81 | 30 | 46 | 207 |