Toledo recorded nearly 27 percent fewer homicides through the first nine months of 2026 than in the same period last year, even as the number of people shot rose by almost 19 percent, according to the City of Toledo’s third-quarter crime statistics, presented on Monday, November 2, by Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and Police Chief Kevin Braun and reported by WTVG.
The city’s figures, reported by WTVG and published with identical numbers by The Fostoria Free Press, count 22 homicides in the first nine months of 2026, down from 30 a year earlier — a decline of 26.7 percent. Robberies fell 18.9 percent, from 228 to 185, thefts from motor vehicles dropped 8 percent, from 754 to 694, and auto thefts declined 6.4 percent, from 903 to 845, according to the City of Toledo figures reported by WTVG.
"I think that is a significant step forward. Now, we’re not satisfied, we’d like to be even lower, but I do think the policies procedures and strategies we’ve put in place have not only caused our homicide rate to come down off the COVID spike, but now we can say it’s come down from what it was ten years ago — long before COVID, long before me, long before Chief Braun," Kapszukiewicz told WTVG.
The other side of the ledger is gun violence that does not end in death. The number of people shot — excluding self-inflicted shootings — rose 18.6 percent, from 113 to 134, and burglaries inched up 1.3 percent, from 964 to 977, according to the city figures reported by WTVG. Kapszukiewicz acknowledged to WTVG that "burglaries ticked up a little bit … and individuals being shot also ticked up."
"It’s a bit of a mixed bag but there are things we can be optimistic about as far as our statistics here in the third quarter. The reality is: crime is down in our city. Full stop. Crime is down in our city. It doesn’t mean there isn’t more work to be done. Until all of these categories have zeroes next to them, we’re never going to be satisfied," Braun told WTVG.
The presentation was the first quarterly crime update of Braun’s tenure as chief. Former Chief Mike Troendle retired over the weekend and Braun officially took over on November 1, according to WTVG; the City of Toledo confirmed the succession in its own July 22, 2026 announcement, which set Troendle’s last day at November 1 and named Braun — a Toledo native who joined the department in December 2000 and has served more than 25 years — as the next chief.
"These numbers show progress, and I want to recognize the officers who are out there doing this work every day. We’re seeing fewer homicides, robberies, and vehicle thefts, but we also know too many people are still being affected by gun violence. My focus is on supporting our officers and continuing to make Toledo a safer place to live," Braun told WTVG. He credited partnerships with community organizations and other law-enforcement agencies, police work and technology advances for the improvements, WTVG reported.
The mixed picture — fewer killings, more shootings — is one Toledo shares with many American cities working their way down from the pandemic-era violence spike, and it shapes what residents actually feel. A neighborhood can be statistically safer and still hear gunfire too often; the city’s own numbers hold both truths at once, and its leaders, to their credit, presented both on Monday rather than only the favorable half.
Toledo’s broader civic effort runs on the same partnership logic. NewsForce247 has covered a new pilot pairing Mom’s House and Harbor to support Toledo families upstream of crisis and the litigation still unfolding from October’s chemical release, including a lawsuit filed by eight Toledo residents — different fronts of the same question of how safe the city feels to the people who live in it.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed is the city’s third-quarter accounting itself, identical in both outlets’ reporting: homicides, robberies and vehicle-related thefts down; shootings and burglaries up. What the quarterly release does not provide is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown or clearance rates for the shootings that rose — the detail that would show where the remaining gun violence is concentrated and whether the people responsible are being identified.
What happens next is the year’s final quarter. Kapszukiewicz said that, barring an unexpected tragedy, Toledo is on track to record its lowest yearly homicide total, as reported by WTVG. Whether that milestone holds — and whether the shooting numbers bend down to match the homicide trend — will be the first real test of the Braun era when the full-year statistics are presented early in 2027.
Photo: Limpfster94, CC BY-SA