As President Donald Trump and even local magnate Marc Benioff have called on federal troops to quell disorder in the city, San Francisco is on track to have the lowest number of homicides in more than 70 years, the Chronicle found — potentially beating last year’s 60-year low.
By the San Francisco Police Department’s latest official count, there had been 19 homicides in the first nine months of 2025, compared to 24 last year at the same time last year. Those numbers do not include the apparent murder-suicide of a family of four last week, which may raise the count of murders by three. SFPD has not made an official ruling on the incident, but even if those crimes are included, the city would be on track to have 27 — still the lowest since 1954, according to police data.
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The stunning, sustained decline comes as Trump described San Francisco and other liberal American cities as “very unsafe places” that should be used as “training grounds” for the military. Already, the administration has moved to send the National Guard, including troops from California, to Portland over the objections of Oregon’s governor and the city’s mayor. For now, that attempt has been blocked by a judge.
But the data often does not suggest that San Francisco and other Democrat-led cities are dangerous places, particularly when it comes to murder. San Francisco’s decline is part of a homicide drop across the nation — which could also reach the lowest numbers on record since 1960, according to crime analyst Jeff Asher…