Reports of shootings and other violent crimes in Chattanooga decreased in 2022 compared to previous years, according to Chattanooga Police Department data.
But not all crime went down last year. The city saw a notable increase in robberies and shoplifting in 2022, as well as upticks in sex offenses and kidnapping.
The city recorded around 40 more robberies in 2022 than in 2021 -- about a 21% increase. Shoplifting also increased by around 7%, while burglaries and other thefts went slightly down.
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Forcible sex offenses -- a category that includes rape, sexual assault and sex crimes involving children -- increased by around 5% in that time, with 17 more instances reported in 2022 than the year before. Kidnapping and abductions, most of which the department said stem from disputes between family members or partners, also rose by 9%.
"Those sorts of things, that are between known parties, tend to just fluctuate," said Adam Ging, crime analysis supervisor for the Chattanooga Police Department. "There are some things that we can do to prevent them in terms of education or definitely in terms of building good cases against people when they get arrested, but obviously we don't have a cop inside someone's house."
Shootings decreased by nearly half in Chattanooga last year, with 86 reported in 2022 compared to 154 in 2021. Shootings were down by around 44%, and the number of people hurt or killed in shootings decreased 30%, from 179 in 2021 to 126 in 2022. That means that, on a per-shooting basis, more people were shot on average in each incident.
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"It wasn't an across-the-board increase, as though every shooting had more people shot," Ging said. "There were a couple incidents where there were a lot of people that, unfortunately, were victims."
Ging pointed to a pair of high-profile mass shootings in Chattanooga over the summer, which police say were unusual for the city. In late May, a teenage shooter injured six people downtown. Another shooting, just eight days later, killed two people and injured 12 more on McCallie Avenue. A third person was killed and two more were hurt by cars while fleeing the scene of that shooting.
In total, Chattanooga police responded to 25 homicides in 2022, compared to 33 in 2021 and 34 in 2020. Of those, 84% were gun-related, according to the department. Around 84% of homicide victims were male in 2022, and the majority of victims were between ages 18 and 37.
Around 160 fewer aggravated assaults were reported last year than in 2021, a 10% decrease.
DUIs and drug crimes also declined in 2022, by 20% and 4% respectively since 2021, data shows.
The COVID-19 pandemic increased violent crime in 2020 and 2021 in Chattanooga and across the nation, data shows. For some crimes, the dropoff in 2022 is a reduction from pandemic peaks but not necessarily a reduction from prepandemic levels.
For example, while there were fewer aggravated assaults last year than in 2020, there were still more than 100 more reported in 2022 than in any of the three years before the pandemic began.
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"Some of that (decrease) is sort of a correction down to normal levels, but some of it is definitely just a decrease due to the good work that we're doing," Ging said in a phone interview Friday.
The pandemic also led to an uptick in domestic violence nationwide, including in Chattanooga. That trend hasn't reversed yet, data shows. Reports of domestic assaults increased by 3% between 2021 and 2022, and the city reported at least five domestic violence homicides last year compared to three the year before.
A Chattanooga Times Free Press poll in November found slightly more than half of respondents thought crime is getting worse in and around Chattanooga, based on a survey of 311 voters conducted during the election. Just 5% of people surveyed said they felt crime was decreasing in Hamilton County, versus 52% who felt it was rising and 36% who felt crime had stayed about the same.
Fifty-two percent of respondents also said they would support increasing law enforcement budgets in Hamilton County and Chattanooga.
Roughly 1 in 6 people surveyed said crime is the biggest problem facing Hamilton County. Crime ranked second only to education as the top issue on voters' minds, the poll found.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.