Erie’s police chief credits specialized enforcement efforts, grant funding support and more officers for helping to fuel a continuing drop in some of the most serious crime in the city this year.
Chief Dan Spizarny on Thursday released crime data from the first nine months of 2024 that he said reveals “some awesome numbers” in crime categories that have been high in recent years, but have dropped significantly so far this year.
Those numbers include three homicides in the city between January and September, down from 13 over the same period in 2023; 13 people shot, down from 41 last year; and 80 confirmed shots-fired incidents, down from 146 last year.
Erie’s homicides have since increased to five, following the fatal beating of a 31-year-old man on Oct. 30 and the death of a city woman in a separate incident the following day. Erie ended 2023 with 14 homicides.
Of the 13 incidents where a person was shot, four of those incidents were accidental and three were justified, Spizarny said. Of the six remaining incidents, four were solved by investigators, he said.