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Fact check: Which US city had the highest homicide rate per 100,000 in 2024 according to FBI Uniform Crime Report data?
Executive Summary
The best-supported reading of the provided analyses is that St. Louis, Missouri, had the highest homicide rate among the 24‑city samples cited for 2024, reported at about 54.4 homicides per 100,000 residents. Other compilations and categorizations in the dataset show higher rates for smaller jurisdiction groupings (for example Birmingham and East Point) or different subsets (largest cities), so the answer depends on which set of cities is being compared [1] [2].
1. How the simple question produced multiple competing claims about “highest” homicide rates
The assembled analyses present three overlapping but not identical claims: one identifies St. Louis as the highest among a 24‑city sample (54.4 per 100,000), another breaks results out by city‑size buckets and lists different leaders in small and extra‑small categories (Birmingham 58.8; East Point 78.5), and a third highlights that among the most populous cities Baltimore registers a very high rate (58.6) but without claiming an overall top spot. These differences arise because the phrase “which US city had the highest homicide rate” can be answered either within a specific sample (the 24 cities), by population‑size strata, or across a nation‑wide universe — and the documents provided do not present a single unified national ranking that covers every incorporated place [1] [2] [3].
2. The direct evidence pointing to St. Louis as the top city in the 24‑city report
Three of the analyses explicitly record St. Louis at roughly 54.4 per 100,000 as the highest rate in the 24‑city homicide report, and they present that figure consistently as the headline finding for that particular compilation. The 24‑city dataset repeatedly surfaces in the materials and is the clearest, most directly cited instance where a single city is labeled “highest” for 2024; therefore, within the confines of that sample the claim that St. Louis was the top city is the most straightforward and well‑supported assertion in the provided documents [1].
3. Why alternative leaders appear when you change the comparison set
When the universe of comparison is altered — for example, by isolating medium, small, or extra‑small cities, or by restricting attention to the largest metropolitan jurisdictions — different cities emerge with higher per‑capita homicide rates. The analyses show Birmingham leading small cities at 58.8 and East Point topping extra‑small cities at 78.5 per 100,000, while a separate list of the most populous cities puts Baltimore at about 58.6 per 100,000. Those numbers are not inconsistent with St. Louis’s 54.4 figure; they only demonstrate that “highest” is contingent on the sample frame, and the documents provided do not reconcile these frames into a single all‑places ranking [2] [3].
4. The FBI’s national release does not itself name a single city as the top homicide rate
The FBI’s broader 2024 national release discussed in the provided analyses focuses on aggregate crime counts and trends across participating agencies and does not enumerate a national, all‑jurisdictions per‑capita ranking naming one city as the single highest homicide rate. That absence helps explain why third‑party compendia and focused 24‑city reports are doing the work of naming leaders: the FBI statistics can be used to compute city rates, but the national narrative document alone does not declare one municipality the country’s top homicide rate holder [4].
5. What to say when asked which US city had the highest homicide rate in 2024
Given the documents provided, the defensible, evidence‑based reply is that St. Louis is reported as the highest‑rate city in the cited 24‑city homicide report for 2024 (about 54.4 per 100,000), while acknowledging that other subsets show higher rates for other municipalities (Birmingham and East Point among smaller city categories, Baltimore among the largest cities). If the question intends a nationwide, cross‑category ranking of every incorporated place, the materials here do not supply a single authoritative national winner; instead they supply sample‑specific winners and a national FBI release that lacks a named city top‑rank [1] [2] [3] [4].
6. Caveats: sample scope, city definitions and reporting differences that affect “highest” labels
Finally, the provided analyses reveal several methodological caveats that make single‑city proclamations fragile: the datasets differ in scope (24‑city sample versus stratified size categories versus “most populous” lists), city boundary and population denominators vary, and the FBI’s own national release emphasizes agency participation rather than a unified city ranking. Those technical issues mean that any definitive answer must specify the comparison set and the source; within the supplied sources, St. Louis (54.4 per 100,000) is the most consistently documented top city for the 24‑city sample [1].