Miami is kicking off 2026 with some eye-popping crime numbers, and for once, that is good news. City officials say major offenses dropped sharply in the first quarter compared with the same stretch in 2025. According to Chief Manny Morales, property crime fell 20.7%, homicides dropped 50%, robberies slid 15.6%, stolen cars were down 43.9% and car break-ins declined 36.4% year over year.
📉✨ City of Miami experienced one of the safest first quarters in recent history. https://x.com/i/status/2041530441950167113
— Chief Manny Morales (@moralesmiamipd) April 7, 2026
Chief Morales' Post
Chief Manny Morales laid out the numbers in an April 7 post on X, stressing that the comparison is between the first quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2025 and calling it one of the safest starts to a year in recent memory. In his breakdown, he highlighted that among property crimes, the biggest year-over-year declines came in stolen vehicles and thefts from cars. The details appear in Chief Manny Morales’s post on X.
Official Data And Caveats
The Miami Police Department's FIBRS statistics page, which tracks year-to-date tallies by offense category, shows lower early-2026 counts for motor-vehicle theft and theft-from-vehicle than at the same point last year, lining up with the trend Morales described. At the same time, the site flags that the figures are informational and can shift as incident reports are added or reclassified, so the early totals are not final. Miami Police Department FIBRS statistics.
How This Fits With Broader Trends
Local coverage and national number-crunchers have noted that Miami is not alone. Analysts say the city's early-2026 gains track with a broader wave of declining violent and property crime in many U.S. cities, although the pace and timing differ from place to place. Local10 previously reported on falling violent-crime totals in Miami last year, while Axios has chronicled similar early-year slides across several large departments nationwide.
What The Department Points To
In its 2025 annual report, the Miami Police Department credits a mix of approaches, including additional officer training, upgraded digital tools and more targeted enforcement, as part of a strategy it says has helped boost clearance rates and head off repeat offenses. Those efforts are among the measures leaders have cited when talking about the recent declines. MPD Annual Report 2025.
Morales has framed the first-quarter figures as early validation that the department's tactics are paying off, while also reminding residents that year-to-date snapshots can change as new reports are processed. For the full breakdown and graphics, see Chief Manny Morales on X.
