SubX.News® Crime Report | October 20, 2026
CHICAGO — Murders increased 25% during the latest reporting week, criminal sexual assault complaints rose 4% over the last 28 days and motor vehicle theft remains 6% higher year to date, according to the Chicago Police Department’s Week 42 Public Safety Report.
The report covers October 12 through October 18, 2026, and shows several crime categories increasing over different reporting periods despite an overall 2% decline in reported crime complaints.
Chicago recorded 10 murders during the latest seven-day period compared with eight during the corresponding week in 2025, an increase of 25%.
Criminal sexual assault complaints increased 4% over the latest 28 days, from 144 in 2025 to 150 in 2026. The category remains down just 1% year to date.
Motor vehicle theft remains one of the clearest categories increasing in 2026, with 14,494 complaints compared with 13,615 during the same period last year, an increase of 6%.
Burglary complaints increased 1% during the latest 28-day period, from 526 to 533, although burglaries remain down 8% year to date.
Other major categories declined. Year-to-date murders are down 4%, robberies 21%, aggravated batteries 1%, thefts 2% and shooting incidents 4%.
Total reported crime complaints declined 2%, from 78,617 in 2025 to 77,179 in 2026.
Crime Moving in Different Directions
Chicago’s Week 42 report shows how crime trends change depending on the category and reporting period.
The latest seven-day report shows murders increasing while most other categories declined.
Criminal sexual assault and burglary complaints also increased over the latest 28-day period, while motor vehicle theft remains above 2025 levels year to date.
The figures illustrate why a single citywide percentage does not describe every crime trend.
Four Years Later, Chicago Crime Remains Near 2022 Levels
Chicago’s longer historical comparisons raise additional questions about the city’s reported progress.
CPD recorded 77,179 total crime complaints through Week 42 of 2026 compared with 78,940 during the comparable period in 2022, a reduction of just 2%.
Total crime remains 14% below 2024 and 16% below 2023, but the difference compared with 2022 is considerably smaller.
Theft increased from 43,553 complaints in 2022 to 46,564 in 2026, up 7%.
Motor vehicle theft increased from 14,368 to 14,494, up 1%.
The historical figures show that while Chicago experienced considerably higher crime totals during 2023 and 2024, the city’s overall complaint count remains close to its 2022 level.
CPD’s Weekly Report Does Not Show the Entire Violence Picture
The latest City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard shows another important distinction between declining overall crime complaints and the number of people killed by gunfire.
Through October 18, 2026, Chicago recorded 303 fatal shooting victimizations compared with 293 during the same period in 2025, an increase of 3.4%.
Overall homicide victimizations declined 3.6%, from 359 to 346.
Non-shooting homicide victimizations fell 34.8%, from 66 to 43.
Total shooting victimizations declined 3.1%, from 1,556 to 1,508, while nonfatal shooting victimizations decreased 4.6%, from 1,263 to 1,205.
Multi-victim shooting incidents declined 5.3%, from 206 to 195, reversing the increases shown in earlier October dashboard snapshots.
The difference between shooting victims and fatal shooting victims remains significant.
In 2025, approximately 18.8% of shooting victims died. In 2026, that percentage increased to approximately 20.1%.
That represents an increase of approximately 1.3 percentage points, or about 6.7% relative to 2025.
Chicago is recording fewer shooting victims overall, but a larger percentage of those victims are dying.
Crime Confidence Index™ Shows Different Public Safety Trends
SubX.News® Crime Confidence Index™, which compares multiple crime measures rather than relying on a single headline statistic, continues to show why declining overall crime percentages do not necessarily mean every measure of violence is improving.
The latest dashboard reports human trafficking victimizations increased 58.8%, from 17 in 2025 to 27 in 2026.
Criminal sexual assault victimizations declined only 0.6%, from 1,653 to 1,643, while CPD’s separate complaint data shows sexual assaults increasing 4% over the latest 28 days.
Aggravated battery victimizations declined just 0.3%.
Overall violent crime victimizations declined 7.3%, from 20,927 to 19,404.
The combined figures show several developments worth watching: fatal shooting victimizations remain above 2025 levels, the fatal share of shooting victims has increased, sexual assault complaints are rising over the latest 28-day period and motor vehicle theft remains elevated year to date.
Smash-and-Grab Burglaries Spread Across Chicago Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season
Chicago businesses are facing repeated smash-and-grab burglaries as retailers prepare for the holiday shopping season, with reported attacks on restaurants, coffee shops, beauty salons, jewelry stores, gas stations and other small businesses across the city.
Between October 6 and October 20, commercial burglary sprees were reported in Portage Park, Avondale, Logan Square, Wicker Park, Old Town, Humboldt Park, Beverly, Bronzeville, Rogers Park, Uptown and the Southwest Side.
October 8 — Lincoln Park: Burglars reportedly used a vehicle to ram a gas station and target an ATM.
October 13 — Old Town and Humboldt Park: At least five businesses were reportedly targeted during an overnight burglary spree, including restaurants, coffee shops and other storefronts.
October 14 — Northwest Side: More than 20 businesses were targeted in a coordinated overnight burglary spree involving offenders using bricks and heavy objects to smash storefront windows.
Businesses included Terra Coffee, Fry the Coop, Migos Fine Foods, Subway and several other restaurants and retailers.
Fry the Coop sustained approximately $4,000 in damage, although the offenders reportedly escaped with very little cash.
October 15 — Beverly: Six businesses along West 95th Street were burglarized within approximately 25 minutes.
Offenders targeted beauty supply stores, salons and other storefronts, causing thousands of dollars in damage.
Chicago rapper Queen Key announced plans to close her physical storefront following the burglary.
October 16 — Southwest Side and Summit: Multiple restaurants and sandwich shops were reportedly burglarized along Archer Avenue and Harlem Avenue, including Beefy’s, Rosati’s Pizza, Prime Tacos, Jimmy John’s and Subway.
Mid-October — Bronzeville: More than two dozen parked vehicles were reportedly targeted in a parking lot near 33rd and State Street, with offenders smashing windows to steal property.
October 20 — Uptown: Burglars reportedly rammed a Jeep into a gas station in the 5100 block of North Broadway to steal an ATM.
October 20 — Rogers Park: Offenders drove a Honda sedan into Fanny’s Jewelry at 6981 N. Clark Street at approximately 5:02 AM, tearing open part of the storefront before stealing merchandise and fleeing in another vehicle.
Earlier commercial burglaries also affected businesses along 75th Street in Chatham and Grand Crossing, including Soul Veg City, Nadia’s Beauty Salon, Paris Cleaners and Flowers First.
Brown Sugar Bakery at 328 E. 75th Street was burglarized twice during the summer, prompting additional calls for security along the corridor.
The repeated attacks are creating additional expenses for business owners preparing for the holiday shopping season, including replacement windows, damaged doors, lost merchandise, stolen cash registers, security upgrades and interrupted operations.
Mayor Brandon Johnson told Block Club Chicago on October 16 that the city had developed a strategy to reduce robberies and burglaries but did not provide specific details.
“We have been quite effective in driving violence down, but we know there’s a lot more work to be done,” Johnson said.
Business owners have called for additional police patrols, surveillance cameras and overnight security.
CPD’s Week 42 report shows burglary complaints increased 1% during the latest 28-day period, although year-to-date burglaries remain down 8%.
The repeated commercial break-ins illustrate how citywide crime declines can coexist with concentrated burglary activity affecting individual neighborhoods and business corridors.
Investigators have not established that the separate burglary sprees were committed by the same offenders.
Public Safety Beyond the Statistics
Chicago’s crime numbers cannot be reduced to a single percentage.
Murders increased 25% during the latest reporting week, criminal sexual assault complaints increased 4% over 28 days and motor vehicle theft remains 6% higher year to date.
Fatal shooting victimizations are also 3.4% above 2025 levels, despite fewer shooting victims overall.
Meanwhile, business owners across Chicago are confronting repeated break-ins, property damage and additional security costs as the holiday shopping season approaches.
Those individual incidents do not establish a citywide statistical trend on their own, but they illustrate what aggregate percentages cannot: public safety is ultimately experienced by people, not percentages.
Chicagoans should be able to walk to school, ride public transit, visit downtown, operate businesses, drive their cars and remain inside their own homes without becoming victims of violence.
http://SubX.News® Crime Confidence Index™ identifies that divergence as a reason to examine individual categories, victimizations and deaths alongside the overall crime total rather than treating one percentage as a complete measure of public safety.
The question is no longer simply whether crime is up or down.
The question is what is being counted, incidents, complaints, victims or deaths and whether those measurements together show that Chicagoans are becoming safer.
Protecting innocent people from becoming the next victim remains the measure that matters most.
Source:
Week 42 Public Safety Report (12-Oct-26 Through 18-Oct-26) https://www.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-42_p1.pdf
Week 41 Public Safety Report (05-Oct-26 Through 11-Oct-26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-41-1_Part1.pdf
Week 40 Public Safety Report (28-Sep-26 Through 04-Oct-26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-40_page1.pdf
Week 39 Public Safety Report (21 Sep 26 – 27 Sep 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-39_split_1.pdf
Week 38 Public Safety Report (14 Sep 26 – 20 Sep 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-38-2_Part1.pdf
Week 37 Public Safety Report (07 Sep 26 – 13 Sep 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-37-1_Part1.pdf
Week 36 Public Safety Report (31 Aug 26 – 06 Sep 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-36_Part1.pdf
Week 35 Public Safety Report (24 Aug 26 – 30 Aug 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-35-1_Part1.pdf
Week 34 Public Safety Report (17 Aug 26 – 23 Aug 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-34_Part1.pdf
Week 33 Public Safety Report (10 Aug 26 – 16 Aug 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-33-1_Part1.pdf
Week 32 Public Safety Report (03 Aug 26 – 09 Aug 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-32.pdf
Week 31 Public Safety Report (27 Jul 26 – 02 Aug 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-31-1.pdf
Week 30 Public Safety Report (20 Jul 26 – 26 Jul 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-30-1.pdf
Week 29 Public Safety Report (13 Jul 26 – 19 Jul 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-29-1.pdf
Week 28 Public Safety Report (06 Jul 26 – 12 Jul 26) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-28.pdf
Week 27 Public Safety Report (Jun 29 – Jul 05, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-27-1_Part1.pdf
Week 26 Public Safety Report (Jun 22 – Jun 28, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-26-1.pdf
Week 25 Public Safety Report (Jun 15 – Jun 21, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-25.pdf
Week 24 Public Safety Report (Jun 08 – Jun 14, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-24.pdf
Week 23 Public Safety Report (Jun 01 – Jun 07, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-23.pdf
Week 22 Public Safety Report (May 25 – May 31, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-22.pdf
Week 21 Public Safety Report (May 18 – May 24, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-21.pdf
Week 20 Public Safety Report (May 11 – May 17, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-20.pdf
Week 19 Public Safety Report (May 4, – May 10, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-19.pdf
Week 18 Public Safety Report (Apr 27 – May 3, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-18.pdf
Week 17 Public Safety Report (Apr 20 – Apr 26, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-17.pdf
Week 16 Public Safety Report (Apr 13 – Apr 19, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-16.pdf
Week 15 Public Safety Report (Apr 6 – Apr 12, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-15.pdf
Week 14 Public Safety Report (Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-14.pdf
Week 13 Public Safety Report (Mar 23 – Mar 29, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-13.pdf
Week 12 Public Safety Report (Mar 16 – Mar 22, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-12.pdf
Week 11 Public Safety Report (Mar 9 – Mar 15, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-11.pdf
Week 10 Public Safety Report (Mar 2 – Mar 8, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-10.pdf
Week 9 Public Safety Report (Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-9.pdf
Week 8 Public Safety Report (Feb 16 – Feb 22, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-8.pdf
Week 7 Public Safety Report (Feb 9 – Feb 15, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-7.pdf
Week 6 Public Safety Report (Feb 2 – Feb 8, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-6.pdf
Week 5 Public Safety Report (Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-5.pdf
Week 4 Public Safety Report (Jan 19 – Jan 25, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-4.pdf
Week 3 Public Safety Report (Jan 12 – Jan 18, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-3.pdf
Week 2 Public Safety Report (Jan 5 – Jan 11, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-2.pdf
Week 1 Public Safety Report (Dec 29, 2025 – Jan 4, 2026) https://chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Public-Safety-Report-Public-Version-2026-Week-1.pdf
Chicago Police Department Crime Statistics Portal
City of Chicago Data Portal – Crimes 2026
City of Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard
Gun Violence Archive
Violence Reduction – Victims of Homicides and Non-Fatal Shootings
Cook County Medical Examiner Case Archive
Council on Criminal Justice, Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2026 Update (July 2026)
CBS Chicago, October 14 and October 20, 2026.
Block Club Chicago, October 2026 reporting on commercial burglaries in Chatham, Beverly and Northwest Side neighborhoods.
WGN-TV, FOX 32 Chicago, ABC7 Chicago and Hoodline, October 2026 burglary reporting.
CPD statistics are preliminary and subject to revision. Some additional burglary incidents are based on secondary reporting and have not been independently linked by investigators.
