Sacramento crime stats: Homicide, rape, robberies and gun violence all soared in 2021
Murder, rape, assault, robbery and gun-related crimes all spiked significantly in 2021 compared to 2020, the Sacramento Police Department said in a summary of annual crime statistics.
The Police Department recorded 58 homicides last year, up 32% from the 44 reported in 2020, according to a video news release posted Wednesday.
Reported rapes increased by 31%, robberies by 27%, motor vehicle thefts by 26% and assaults by 16%, department spokesman Officer Chad Lewis said in the video.
“The year 2021 was challenging for our community and our department, as we saw a significant increase in homicide, shootings, assaults and other crimes — all of which was consistent with the increase in crime occurring across the nation,” Lewis said.
The department also recorded 752 reports of shootings in 2021, up 25% from 600 the previous year. The number of shooting victims rose 17%, to 256 from 219.
The department seized 1,673 firearms last year — a 34% jump compared with 2020 — and made 1,166 arrests for illegal firearm possession, a 38% increase from 2020, Lewis said in the video. He said 410 firearms, about a quarter of all guns seized last year, were privately manufactured ghost guns.
“What that tells me when we’re seizing that many guns, there’s a lot more out there for sure that we don’t know about,” Police Chief Kathy Lester recently told The Sacramento Bee.
Lester has stressed the importance of reversing the recent rise in gun violence. Less than four months into her tenure, a gang shootout near 10th and K streets downtown left six dead and 12 wounded in the deadliest mass shooting incident in Sacramento’s history.
At her swearing-in ceremony in March, Lester said public safety agencies face a “nationwide call to evolve” amid increases in “violence and hate, and disadvantaged communities that are being further stressed.”
She also spoke of a need to strengthen the public’s trust in law enforcement, as community activists across the country have called for “defunding the police” in the wake of police use-of-force incidents, including the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark by Sacramento officers in 2018. Some local activists have called for redirecting some of the city’s budget currently routed to the Police Department toward efforts to address root causes of violence.
Daniel Hahn, who retired at the end of 2021 after four years as Sacramento’s police chief, said the number of guns on the street appeared to be “skyrocketing” that year.
Hahn blamed increases in homicide and other violent crime as a “perfect storm” of factors including more guns on the streets, effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and California’s decision last year to reduce jail and prison inmate populations through early release programs.
