The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) released its annual crime report for 2025 this week.
Statistics show that reports of violent crime fell from the prior year, but murders statewide and in Minneapolis were still above 2019 numbers, which was prior to the crime spike that followed the George Floyd riots and COVID lockdowns in 2020.
The BCA released a summary of the 2025 violent crime numbers compared to 2024, saying:
- Violent crime levels declined in 2025. In the seven-county Twin Cities Metro Area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington counties), violent crime decreased by 14 percent. Violent crime in greater Minnesota decreased by 9 percent.
- There were 132 murders in 2025 in Minnesota compared with 172 in 2024. Firearms were involved in 70.5 percent of the incidents, down from 75 percent in 2024.
- There were 8,765 aggravated assaults in 2025, which is 11 percent lower than 2024.
- There were 2,188 rapes in 2025, a decrease of 1.9 percent. Most of the rapes occurred in a home (71.8 percent), and 37.5 percent of the victims were minors.
- Motor vehicle theft decreased 22.4 percent in 2025 with 9,803 vehicles stolen as compared with 12,634 in 2024.
- Carjacking incidents (including attempted carjackings) decreased 31 percent with 294 incidents in 2025, compared with 426 in 2024. Carjacking incidents are not counted as motor vehicle thefts.
- There were 64,157 incidents of larceny in 2025 — the lowest number in 57 years.
- Bias crimes remained steady in 2025 with 224 incidents reported.
- Law enforcement use-of-force incidents involving discharge of a firearm dropped in 2025 to 21, 6 fewer than in 2024.
- Law enforcement officers were assaulted in 981 incidents in 2025, a 1.3 percent decrease from 2024.
Statewide murders in 2019 totaled 117, leaving the 2025 total of 132 still over 10 percent higher. Minneapolis recorded 48 murders in 2019 and 62 in 2025, still up about 30 percent from pre-riots and COVID.
Notably, St. Paul tallied 15 homicides in 2025, compared to 30 in 2019, halving its pre-riot murder statistic.
Of the 294 carjacking incidents statewide in 2025, 215 of them occurred in Minneapolis; St. Paul accounted for 34 of them.
Of the 224 reports in the bias crime category, anti-black bias had the largest number of reports at 60, followed by anti-LGBT at 36 and anti-Jewish at 22.
The BCA report also details that property crime reports decreased from 2024 in most categories, including burglary, larceny, vehicle theft, and arson.
The overall downward trend in violent crime in Minnesota corresponds to a downward trend across the United States since President Donald Trump took office, according to FBI statistics published last month.
The FBI report states that the 2025 nationwide murder rate of 4.1 per 100,000 inhabitants is tied with 1955 and 1956 for the lowest murder rate.
The Minnesota report states that the violent crime rate in the state dropped to 225 per 100,000 population in 2025; the lowest violent crime rate since 2019, the report said.
The BCA report also indicates that police use-of-force incidents were down in 2025 with a total of 21 incidents statewide, 11 fewer than 2024. A total of six people died in 2025 due to police use-of-force incidents.
Police use-of-force incidents included the following race information about people on whom force was used: White (12); Black (8); American Indian or Alaskan Native (4); Asian (2).
A sobering caveat to the decreasing crime numbers, however, is a 2024 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which suggests that less than half of all violent crimes are actually reported to authorities. The BJS report states that the property crime reporting rate is even lower, with over 66 percent of those crimes going unreported.
It’s unclear if a new law involving juvenile prosecutions that went into effect last month after being passed during the DFL trifecta may also skew future crime numbers. The new law limits prosecution of juveniles in the state of Minnesota, raising the age of prosecution to 13 from the prior age of 10.
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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Crime Watch MN
Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
