MACON, Ga. — In the middle of a violent crime spike, with nine homicides in 10 days, Bibb County leaders said crime was down.
Sheriff David Davis and Mayor Lester Miller both said 2024 crime totals had dropped from last year, and the mayor called this "a quiet year."
We decided to VERIFY whether Macon-Bibb crime is down this year.
Our sources:
- Bibb County Sheriff's Office monthly reports
- FBI crime statistics
Here's what we found out:
After a recent string of homicides, Sheriff David Davis and Mayor Lester Miller told folks in Macon-Bibb to look at the big picture showing crime is trending down.
"We had a little uptick and this does not seem to be the trend, and we hope that it doesn't continue to be the trend," Davis said last week.
"We've had a very quiet 2024," Miller said. "We wanna keep it that way for the rest of the year. But we do have these spurts that we have to deal with from time to time, and it's not — it's not unusual."
Monthly crime reports confirm that violent crime is way down in Bibb at least through the end of March. At this point, violent crime is down 33%, going from 431 in 2023 to 289 in 2024.
That's driven mostly by a big drop in aggravated assaults, which is down more than a third since last year. There were 405 aggravated assaults in 2023 at this point in the year, and right now, Bibb County has seen 260 aggravated assaults.
Property crime, like larcenies, burglaries and robberies are also down, but not as much. They're only down around 5%, going from 1854 in 2023 to 1764 in 2024.
Put it all together, Bibb County's crime is down around 10% through the first three months of 2024. There were 2285 incidents in 2023, and in 2024, we're right now at 2053 incidents.
And despite this month's spike, Homicides are down slightly from 2023 and from two from years ago when the county set a record.
There were 18 homicides at this point in 2022 and were at 17 in 2023. In 2024, homicides are at 16
So does that mean it's a quiet year? Not quite.
Property crime and total crime is still higher than two years ago.
So we can VERIFY: Yes, crime has gone down in Bibb County compared to last year.
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