The City of Miami Police Department reported a significant decrease in violent crimes across Miami so far in 2025 – a trend reflected in the numbers reported earlier this year in Coconut Grove.
The drop in crime reported in Coconut Grove last month was not an isolated event according to numbers released last week by the City of Miami Police Department.
Crime is down citywide, including a 20% decrease in homicides, 17% decrease in robberies, 19% decrease in aggravated assaults and 37% decrease in auto thefts in comparison to the first half of 2024.
“We’re not here to do a statistical victory. This is a community triumph,” Miami Police Chief Manuel A. Morales said Thursday at a Miami City Hall news conference.
The citywide numbers reflect a trend that was previously reported in the Grove.
“Behind every percentage point there’s a potential life saved, crime prevented and neighborhoods made safer,” Morales added.
The citywide drop in crime is even more dramatic when compared with 2021 statistics. Homicides are down 36%, contact shootings are down 59% and non-contact shootings (when someone is shot at but not struck) are down 72%, according to police.
The drop in violent crime has given the city a chance to break its record low homicide rate of 24, set in 1946 when the city first started reporting homicides. The city has recorded 16 homicides so far this year, one of which occurred in Coconut Grove. Last year the city reported 27 homicides for the year.
“This decline isn’t a coincidence. It’s the result of an intentional strategy, strong collaboration and a relentless commitment to public safety by our community,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told reporters.
When asked whether fewer crimes are being reported by Miami residents due to fears over immigration enforcement, Morales said he has not seen evidence of that. Arrests year-to-date are up year over year, from 9,847 in 2024 to 10,542 in 2025.
The overall drop in crime hasn’t been confined to any neighborhood in particular, with each commission district seeing a double digit decrease in total crime. As of May, overall crime in Coconut Grove was down 33%, police reported.
“To imagine, you can have a city that is virtually crime free, where you have children in every single neighborhood of our city going out there and safely playing in their front yards – that is a day that we believe will all lift us up,” Morales said.
In Coconut Grove, Morales credited the drop in crime with good policing. “We’ve done a good job of removing the few bad people in the Little Bahamas area,” he said.
Still, the Grove has seen 17 burglaries year to date, according to police database Crimemapping.com, despite citywide numbers being down 23%. The year started with a series of burglaries in the North Grove, and in May one burglar assaulted a woman, asleep in her bedroom.
In the past month two more burglaries have been reported, one on West Glencoe Street in the North Grove on July 4 and the other on Stewart Avenue in the South Grove on June 22. Additional information about those incidents was not immediately available.
Major summer events in the Grove this year have also gone off without a hitch, with only one arrest at Goombay Festival despite thousands of attendees.
Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo said an effort to bring policing closer to residents has made a difference. Foot patrols and bike patrols are an example of that.
“One thing is talking about statistics,” he said. “Another thing is making people that are walking in Brickell or downtown or anywhere feel that they are safe here, not just tourists but residents, our families.”
Hands-on, community style policing was a strategy embraced by former Grove Commander Daniel Kerr, who encouraged his officers to get out of their squad cars to patrol on foot or on bicycles, to better connect with neighbors.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional data provided by the Miami Police Department.
