Seattle is the only city of the largest 25 US cities to have zero homicides in 2025
Jan 14, 2025, 3:53 PM | Updated: 4:21 pm
A Seattle Police Department vehicle is seen on a city street. (Photo courtesy of the Seattle Police Department)
(Photo courtesy of the Seattle Police Department)
Seattle is the only city of the largest 25 U.S. cities by population to not have any reported homicides so far in 2025, a recent survey of news coverage shows.
MyNorthwest editors conducted research into other U.S. cities’ homicides after a post from the X account @HomicideSeattle last weekend indicated Seattle was in a rare group of cities that had not seen a homicide so far this year.
San Jose, Seattle and Denver are the last three of the 20 largest US cities without a homicide in 2025.
— Seattle Homicide (@HomicideSeattle) January 12, 2025
Crime blotter: Covering the crimes committed in the Puget Sound region and beyond
Since that post was published online, Denver and San Jose, California, have reported homicides.
A Seattle Police Department (SPD) spokesman confirmed to MyNorthwest Monday the city hasn’t seen a homicide yet in 2025. That spokesman added it is too early to say if this is unusual for the month of January as further data needed to be analyzed.
In addition, the department pointed to its crime dashboard to look at past homicides by month. Its data shows three homicides occurred in January 2024. Going back further, there were five in January 2023, four in January 2021 and 2022, six in January 2020 and three in January 2019.
The SPD also reported the final count for homicides in 2024 stands at 58. However, the department acknowledged the number is subject to change if any victims die due to injuries sustained during any assaults committed in 2024. That number is down from the 64 homicides reported in 2023, which was the most recorded since at least 2008.
Progress or problem? Seattle’s population keeps growing, but the growth has slowed
25 largest US cities by population
The following is a list of the 25 largest cities by population in the U.S., according to estimates from data released by the U.S. Census Bureau as of July 1, 2023. The research into other U.S. cities identified, based mostly on news stories about crimes in those cities, shows at least one homicide being committed in the other 24 largest U.S. cities since Jan. 1.
New York City (Population as of July 1, 2023: 8.258 million)
Los Angeles (3.821 million)
Chicago (2.664 million)
Houston (2.314 million)
Phoenix (1.650 million)
Philadelphia (1.551 million)
San Antonio (1.495 million)
San Diego (1.388 million)
Dallas (1.303 million)
Jacksonville, Florida (985,843)
Austin, Texas (979,882)
Fort Worth, Texas (978,468)
San Jose, California (969,655)
Columbus, Ohio (913,175)
Charlotte, North Carolina (911,311)
Indianapolis (879,293)
San Francisco (808,988)
Seattle (755,078)
Denver (716,577)
Oklahoma City (702,767)
Nashville (687,788)
Washington, D.C. (678,972)
El Paso, Texas (678,958)
Las Vegas (660,929)
Boston (653,833)
Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.
