Minneapolis homicide clearance rate
Executive summary
Minneapolis’ murders fell in 2025 — city officials report 64 homicides last year, down from 77 in 2024 — but available reporting and public dashboards in the provided sources do not supply a definitive, current “clearance rate” (the share of homicides solved) for the city for 2025; investigative reporting and watchdog data cited in earlier years show the city’s clearance rate has been a longstanding concern and dipped to historic lows in prior analyses [1] [2] [3]. The best available path to a precise current figure is to consult MPD published clearance figures, the FBI Uniform Crime Report or specialized trackers such as the Murder Accountability Project; those specific numbers are not present in the documents supplied here [4] [5] [3].
1. What the numbers say about homicides, not clearances
Minneapolis recorded 64 homicides in 2025, a decline from 77 in 2024, a trend city leaders highlighted as part of broader crime reductions last year [1] [2]. Multiple outlets and civic data portals corroborate falling homicide counts citywide and regionally — St. Paul also recorded a sharp decline, and a national snapshot showed many cities experienced lower homicide totals in 2025 [6] [7]. Those totals, however, are distinct from clearance statistics: homicide counts are raw incident numbers, while clearance rates require additional reporting on case closures and categorization, which is not included in the supplied news stories or the city dashboard snippets provided [4] [8].
2. What past investigations reveal about Minneapolis clearance trends
Investigations by local CBS affiliates and national coverage have previously documented a significant drop in Minneapolis’ homicide clearance rate, describing it as having “fallen below historic lows” and prompting the department to recheck its own numbers, signaling systemic trouble in solving homicides in prior years [3]. That reporting is important context: even if total murders fall, a persistently low clearance rate means many victims’ families may still see no resolution, and comparisons to national averages show stark racial disparities in which cases are solved [3] [9].
3. City actions and political debate around solving killings
Minneapolis leadership has responded publicly by reorganizing investigative units — Chief Brian O’Hara announced a new major crimes division and leadership restructuring as part of a push to improve investigations — while critics, including some City Council members, have explicitly cited the MPD’s low clearance rate as a point of failure and political pressure driving reforms [6] [1]. Local reporting also documents debates over staffing, overtime, and federal operations that affect police capacity; the department remains understrength relative to chartered positions, a factor officials cite when discussing investigative limits [10] [11].
4. Why a precise clearance percentage isn’t stated here
None of the supplied sources includes a single, attributable clearance-percentage for Minneapolis for 2025; the city’s crime dashboard and open data portals exist for public query but the excerpts provided do not show an explicit clearance rate figure, and investigative pieces discuss trends rather than publishing an annual percent solved number in these snippets [4] [8] [3]. Independent resources that track clearance rates — notably the Murder Accountability Project and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting — are referenced as repositories for that metric, but their specific Minneapolis 2025 percentages are not included among the supplied documents [5].
5. Bottom line — what can be asserted and what requires follow-up
Reporting in these sources supports two clear points: homicides in Minneapolis declined in 2025 to 64 incidents, and Minneapolis has faced historically low homicide-clearance performance that remains politically and operationally salient [1] [2] [3]. What cannot be authoritatively asserted from the provided material is the precise Minneapolis homicide clearance rate for 2025; to answer that specific question with a number requires pulling the MPD’s clearance statistics (or the FBI UCR/Murder Accountability Project datasets) for the relevant year, which the supplied snippets do not contain [4] [5]. Stakeholders pushing reform point to low clearance as proof of a need for structural change, while city officials point to reorganizations and staffing increases as remedies; both claims are visible in the reporting but an exact 2025 clearance percentage is not present in the provided sources [6] [1].