Two mass shootings in 14 hours over the weekend highlight how violent Milwaukee has been over the past year–even as the national homicide rate saw its biggest decline since 1900
Milwaukee’s homicide rate rose significantly since the beginning of 2025 even as the national murder rate experienced its largest single-year decline on record.
According to the Milwaukee Police Department, the city recorded 142 homicides in 2025, an 8% increase from 132 in 2024, ending two straight years of declines. Through mid-March 2026, Milwaukee has recorded 20 homicides, putting it on pace to equal or surpass the 2025 total.
This stands in stark contrast to the national homicide rate in 2025, which declined by a stunning 21% from 2024, the biggest single-year drop since at least 1900. The Council on Criminal Justice analyzed 35 major cities and determined that there were 922 fewer murders in 2025 than the previous year. Declines occurred in 31 of the 35 sampled cities, with many large urban areas reporting double-digit reductions.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association reported a similar 19% drop in homicides across 67 large cities for much of 2025.
Milwaukee, however, is a major outlier. Its homicide rate since the beginning of 2025 is 24.61 per 100,000—six times higher than the national rate of 4.0 per 100,000 projected by the Council on Criminal Justice study.
The spike in Milwaukee was underscored by two mass shootings over the weekend. Just after 11:00 am Saturday, five people were shot near North 37th Street and North Darien Street on the city’s north side. A 25-year-old man died and four other victims in their 20s were hospitalized with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
Less than 14 hours later, three people were shot on Water Street in the downtown bar district. A 22-year-old man, identified by family as Dylan Jackson, was pronounced dead at the scene while an 18-year-old and 19-year-old were hospitalized.
No suspects have been arrested in either case.
As Milwaukee has struggled with incidents of extreme violence, though, other major cities have seen it decline in large measure because of President Trump’s crackdown on crime throughout the first year of his second term.
Since early 2025, the White House has sealed the southern border—through which untold numbers of violent criminals passed during the Biden Administration—and deported more than 675,000 illegal alien criminals (with millions more self-deporting, according to the Trump Administration).
These policies, the White House says, were the primary driver of last year’s steep declines in not just the murder rate, but all categories of violent crime.
