Sarasota police say the city’s crime numbers are not just dipping, they are on a serious slide. At an April 20 City Commission meeting in City Hall, Chief Rex Troche told commissioners that overall crime fell 18 percent in 2025 compared with 2024, marking the third straight year of declines and fueling talk inside City Hall of a sustained public safety turnaround. Troche and his command staff pointed to a blend of new technology, targeted enforcement and tighter neighborhood partnerships for the continued drop.
According to the department’s presentation, overall crime fell 18 percent from 2024 to 2025, after a 21.8 percent decline the year before and a 16.2 percent drop in 2023. That three year stretch is what Troche called “amazing.” The slides also showed steep decreases in violent crime categories: murders dropped from seven in 2024 to two in 2025, aggravated assaults fell by about a third, and robberies were down by roughly a third as well. Police said both 2025 homicide cases were cleared quickly, as reported by WWSB…