Philadelphia is solving homicides at the fastest rate in 40 years. Here's how

Summary

Podcast Summary: Consider This from NPR

Episode: Philadelphia is solving homicides at the fastest rate in 40 years. Here’s how
Date: October 21, 2025
Host: Ailsa Chang
Guest: Ellie Rushing, Crime Reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer
Additional Voices: Michael Forrest (Funeral Director), Philadelphia Mayor Sherrelle Parker

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Episode Overview

This episode examines Philadelphia's dramatic improvements in both reducing gun violence and solving homicide cases. The conversation delves into factors behind the city achieving its highest homicide clearance rate in four decades, explores the impact on communities, and considers the role of technology and policing reforms.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Crisis: Philadelphia’s Pandemic-Era Gun Violence ([00:00]–[01:22])

• During the pandemic, Philadelphia experienced an unprecedented surge in gun violence and homicides, peaking at 562 in 2021, a city record.
  • Michael Forrest (Funeral Director):
    “Emotionally, physically, the time effort, dealing with the families, their emotions as they unpack, their anger issues, the regrets, the guilt, and they all come and they put it in my lap.” ([00:27])
  • By 2021, clearance rates (cases solved) dropped to a historic low of 41.8%.
    Ellie Rushing:
    “So less than half of the city’s murders were being solved.” ([01:15])

2. Signs of Progress: Homicide and Clearance Rate Improvements ([01:22]–[04:11])

• Homicides have since dropped, with the potential for 2024 to record the lowest number in half a century.
  • Mayor Sherrelle Parker:
    “If these current trends continue, Philadelphia will see the lowest numbers of homicides and shootings in more than a half a century here in our city.” ([01:33])
• Homicide clearance rates in 2024 have soared to between 86% and 91%, the highest since 1984.
  • “Through August, police arrested a suspect within a week in about a third of the cases this year, and that's up from just 15% of cases three years ago saw an arrest that quickly.”
    (Ellie Rushing, [04:00])
• Some improvements come from solving old cases, but many are new.

3. Why Solving Murders Matters ([04:11]–[05:05])

• Low clearance rates undermine community trust—especially among Black and Brown residents most affected by violence.
  • Ellie Rushing:
    “Their families can feel like that their killings don't matter and that the police aren't putting enough effort into solving these crimes. And so then, you know, they won’t help them with these cases.” ([04:22])
• High clearance rates deter retaliatory violence.
  “Arresting shooters prevents them from committing more violence ... and it can really deter others ... by sending a message of accountability.” ([04:45])

4. The Math: Fewer Killings = More Attention Per Case ([05:05]–[05:53])

• With fewer murders, detectives’ caseloads are more manageable (now half the pandemic workload), allowing more thorough investigations.
  • “Detectives were handling 10 to 15 cases per year, which is more than twice the workload recommended by the US Department of Justice. And this year it's half that.” ([05:31])
• Rushing notes that with fewer killings, even a similar absolute number of arrests yields a higher clearance rate.

5. Technology and Investigative Tools ([05:53]–[07:52])

• Dramatic technological upgrades bolster police efforts:
  • Surveillance cameras: Over 7,300 city cameras, up from 3,600 in 2024, plus tens of thousands more from businesses and residents.
    • Ellie Rushing:
      “They can zoom in on the name of a candy bar wrapper ... the fine lines of someone's tattoos ... more often than not, police now are catching these shootings on camera.” ([06:04])
  • License plate readers expedite tracking of suspects’ vehicles across the city.
• Some privacy concerns from defense attorneys:
  • Lack of documentation on usage, risks of abuse, and especially concerns about narcotics investigations.
  • “Police can actually control them through apps in their phones ... there’s few rules or safeguards against abuse of that system.” ([07:17])

6. Detailing a Breakthrough Case ([07:52]–[09:10])

• Example: The 2022 Trey Crawford murder case.
  • Victim’s mother strained to reach detectives; eventually a new detective was assigned.
  • Manual review of “tens of thousands” of Instagram messages led to critical evidence and arrests in 2024.
  • Ellie Rushing:
    “The detective actually went through the suspect's Instagram records ... it takes hundreds of hours to do. But those records were really all the evidence that he needed.” ([08:00])

7. Community Perspective: Progress and Remaining Gaps ([09:10]–[10:02])

• Despite improvements, “murders are not down to zero” and many systemic problems (poverty, gangs, illegal guns) remain.
  • Nearly 800 homicides from 2021–2023 remain unsolved.
  • Ellie Rushing:
    “These are hundreds of families, thousands of people across the city that are left in this purgatory of grief who are longing for answers and accountability.” ([09:30])
• Relationship with police is improving for some, but trust-building remains an ongoing challenge.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You go home and you reset.”
  Michael Forrest (Funeral Director), reflecting on coping with trauma, [00:49]
• “Philadelphia right now is on track to record the fewest number of homicides since the 1960s.”
  Ellie Rushing, [05:17]
• “I want to make sure that's clear. Right. When we have dramatically fewer killings this year, even fewer total arrests overall can boost that clearance rate.”
  Ellie Rushing, [05:48]
• “These cameras are incredible. I mean, they can zoom in on the name of a candy bar wrapper that's on the ground or the fine lines of someone's tattoos...”
  Ellie Rushing, [06:04]
• “There is a lot of work to be done indeed.”
  Ellie Rushing, [09:47]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–01:22: Setting the context: Violence, falling clearance rates
• 03:26–04:11: Evidence of improvement: arrest rates jump
• 04:22–05:05: Community trust & importance of solving cases
• 05:17–05:53: Workload reduction and its impact
• 06:04–07:07: Technology’s transformative role
• 07:17–07:52: Privacy concerns about surveillance
• 08:00–09:10: Case study: Trey Crawford investigation
• 09:10–10:02: Remaining unsolved cases & community sentiment

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Tone and Language

• Empathetic and fact-driven, balances data with personal stories
• Honest consideration of both positive changes and ongoing issues
• Focused, clear, with a strong sense of local impact

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Conclusion

Philadelphia’s success in solving homicides is due to falling violence, lighter caseloads, and a sophisticated blend of old-school detective work and cutting-edge technology. While the gains are significant, the episode underscores the ongoing struggles faced by bereaved families and communities still waiting for justice, and touches on questions of privacy and trust in policing. The story is ultimately one of progress, but also of work yet to be done.

Transcript

[Ailsa Chang]

Gun violence got very bad during the pandemic. This was true across the country, but this is how it sounded to Philadelphia police Lieutenant Dennis Rosenbaum at the time.

[Ellie Rushing]

My phone goes off all night long. Triples, quadruples, quintuples, one after another, one after another.

[Ailsa Chang]

He means triple shootings, quadruple shootings. Michael Forrest saw firsthand the consequences of many of those shootings. He's a funeral director in West Philly.

[Michael Forrest]

Emotionally, physically, the time effort, dealing with the families, their emotions as they unpack, their anger issues, the regrets, the guilt, and they all come and they put it in my lap.

[Ailsa Chang]

In 2021, he told member station WHYY that he tried not to fixate on everything he saw at his job.

[Michael Forrest]

I mean, I would have ptsd. I couldn't do it. You go home and you reset.

[Ailsa Chang]

That year, 2021, Philadelphia would see 562 homicides, the worst year on record. And as the homicide rate rose, the homicide clearance rate, which measures how many of these crimes are solved, fell. Here's Ellie Rushing, a crime reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

[Ellie Rushing]

It dropped to a historic low of 41.8%. So less than half of the city's murders were being solved.

[Ailsa Chang]

But like most US Cities, Philadelphia turned a corner. The homicides dropped a little then, a lot. Here's Mayor Sherrelle Parker at her State of Philadelphia address last month.

[Sherrelle Parker]

If these current trends continue, you should know that Philadelphia will see the lowest numbers of homicides and shootings in more than a half a century here in our city.

[Ailsa Chang]

And while homicides are going down, the rate at which homicide investigations are solved has gone up. Consider this, it is getting harder to get away with murder in Philadelphia. We look at what's changed and what it means for the people who live there. From npr, I'm Ailsa Chang.

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[Ailsa Chang]

It's Consider this from npr. So Ellie Rushing, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter you just heard from earlier. She and her colleagues have been digging into the crime stats put out by the Philadelphia Police Department.

[Ellie Rushing]

And we compared that with court data to basically fact check the police.

[Ailsa Chang]

The data showed that the homicide clearance rate has bounced between 86 and 91 this year, the highest rate since 1984. Some of that was old crimes now being solved, but a lot of it is new crimes getting solved, too.

[Ellie Rushing]

Through August, police arrested a suspect within a week in about a third of the cases this year, and that's up from just 15% of cases three years ago saw an arrest that quickly.

[Ailsa Chang]

I spoke with Rushing about what's driving this improvement, and I started by asking her, what are the consequences of a low homicide clearance rate like the one Philadelphia saw during the pandemic?

[Ellie Rushing]

When shootings and particularly violent crimes and homicides go unaddressed, it can put a real strain on the police department's relationship with the community. And in Philadelphia, most people who are affected by gun violence are black and brown residents, particularly young men. And so their families can feel like that their killings don't matter and that the police aren't putting enough effort into solving these crimes. And so then, you know, they won't help them with these cases. And experts have also said that basically arresting shooters prevents them from committing more violence and from ending up even as victims of retaliatory shootings themselves. And it can really deter others of committing other shootings by sending a message of accountability.

[Ailsa Chang]

Well, could one big factor driving improvements in clearance rates be because there are fewer killings in general for police to deal with so they just have more time to solve murder cases?

[Ellie Rushing]

Definitely. Philadelphia right now is on track to record the fewest number of homicides since the 1960s. And so this has given detectives dramatically more time to investigate the cases in front of them. I mean, during the pandemic, detectives were handling 10 to 15 cases per year, which is more than twice the workload recommended by the US Department of Justice. And this year it's half that. And some of this also just comes down to simple math. I want to make sure that's clear. Right. When we have dramatically fewer killings this year, even fewer total arrests overall can boost that clearance rate.

[Ailsa Chang]

Totally. Well, your article, it also goes deep into technological improvements within the police department, like better cameras, forensics, equipment. How good are those cameras, by the way?

[Ellie Rushing]

These cameras are incredible. I mean, they can zoom in on the name of a candy bar wrapper that's on the ground or the fine lines of someone's tattoos on their arms or neck. And so in 2024, police said there were about like, 3,600 of these across the city. This year, there are 7,300. And that doesn't even include all of the tens of thousands of other cameras across public transit, private businesses. Residents own, like ring cameras. And so more often than not, police now are catching these shootings on camera.

[Ailsa Chang]

Wow. So these technological innovations are definitely helping police solve cases.

[Ellie Rushing]

Definitely. And the police department has also installed hundreds of license plate readers across the city. And so if police are looking for a getaway car, they can plug in just the, you know, the first few letters of that license plate or the whole one, or even just a descriptor of the car, like a white Infiniti, and then they can trace the path of that car and then get that getaway car more quickly and secure really important evidence.

[Ailsa Chang]

But are you hearing from residents about privacy concerns? Given there's thousands of cameras everywhere in the city, do people feel like they're being constantly surveilled?

[Ellie Rushing]

I haven't necessarily heard that criticism from residents, but there have been concerns raised by defense attorneys as to how police control those cameras. Police can actually control them through apps in their phones. And so some defense attorneys have said that the police don't always document how often they use these cameras, particularly for drug investigations. Some critics have said that there's few rules or safeguards against abuse of that system. And they've questioned kind of the lax use of it, particularly by our narcotics unit, which has seen, you know, its own fair share of scandals and abuse over the years.

[Ailsa Chang]

Well, is there an example that comes to mind for you that reflects the greater efforts police are going to in Philadelphia to solve cases?

[Ellie Rushing]

Yeah, I think back to the case of a young man named Trey Crawford, who was 17. He was shot and killed in April of 2022 in Philadelphia. This was a time when, you know, the gun violence was at unprecedented levels and when and when detectives were juggling, you know, dozens of cases that year. You know, initially, Trey's mom told me that she really struggle connect with the detective on his case. He rarely called her back, and she felt like he wasn't really trying very hard. She fought and complained, and then finally the department assigned a new detective to the case, and this detective seemed to make and have the time to investigate her son's death. The detective actually went through the suspect's Instagram records, and they can actually do this remotely. And he found these suspects, you know, allegedly talking about killing this young man. He had to review tens of thousands of these Instagram records to piece all of these messages together. It was a manual process that was draining that. It takes hundreds of hours to do. But those records were really all the evidence that he needed. And so in April of this year, they arrested and charged three people with Trey's murder.

[Ailsa Chang]

Well, despite the positive developments in homicide clearance rates, it's not that murders are now down to zero. It's not that poverty, gang activity, illegal guns, the drug trade. It's not like all of that is gone. So I am wondering, are residents in Philadelphia perceiving this improvement in clearance rates at least the people you've been talking to, do they feel safer?

[Ellie Rushing]

It's hard to say, because when we looked at this data, it showed that There are nearly 800 killings that occurred between 2021 and 2023 that have yet to result in an arrest. And so these are hundreds of families, thousands of people across the city that are left in this purgatory of grief who are longing for answers and accountability. You know, I think the families this year who have seen arrests, obviously, you know, their relationship with their detectives and the police department have improved. But there is a lot of work to be done indeed.

[Ailsa Chang]

Reporter Ellie Rushing from the Philadelphia Inquirer, thank you so much for your really fascinating reporting.

[Ellie Rushing]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Ailsa Chang]

You heard reporting at the top of this episode from NPR's Martin Kosti and Erin Moselle with NPR member station WHYY in Philadelphia. This episode was produced by Conor Donovan with audio engineering by Simon Laszlo Jansen. It was edited by Patrick Jaranwattanan. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. It's consider this from npr. I'm Ailsa Chang.

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