'Ridiculous': Top cop pushes back against Chicago alderman who suggests city crime stats could be altered

Sam Charles, Chicago Tribune on Aug 29, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

CHICAGO — Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling rebuked a Northwest Side alderman who expressed skepticism this week about Chicago’s year-over-year crime declines as the city girds itself ahead of a possible deployment of National Guard troops.

Alderman Anthony Napolitano, 41st, said in a social media post Wednesday that criminal incident “reclassification” may be a reason for the city’s double-digit declines in violent crime.

“A reported drop in homicides could just as easily mean an increase in death investigations,” Napolitano wrote in a Facebook post. “It’s easy to show a decline in burglaries and robberies if those crimes are just being relabeled as theft. Fewer shooting incidents on the books may correspond with more property damage reports.”

Speaking with the Tribune, Snelling said Napolitano’s social media statement was “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard” and “a slap in the face” to members of the police department. The superintendent also pointed to the years of crime data the city already makes public.

“If I were lying and I had the ability to hide 125 homicides, why wouldn’t I do 250 homicides?” Snelling said Thursday. “Why wouldn’t I do more? Why wouldn’t I hide them all?”

“These men and women are working their asses off,” Snelling said. “To be accused of lying, to be accused of doctoring the numbers is an insult.”

A member of a multi-generation CPD family, Napolitano, himself a former CPD officer and Chicago firefighter, stressed that he wholly supports Snelling and the department’s officers.

Through late August, the city had recorded 266 homicides, a 32% decline in killings from the same time period in 2024, according to CPD data. The Cook County medical examiner’s office, meanwhile, had recorded 276 homicides on the year in Chicago. The city remains on pace to record fewer than 500 killings this year, a goal set last year by Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The medical examiner’s office, in its homicide total, includes killings that CPD may classify as self-defense or non-criminal. Additionally, shootings that occur on Chicago’s expressways are not investigated by CPD, but instead the Illinois State Police.

Total shooting incidents are also reported down 36% citywide. Reports of robberies, batteries, burglaries and car thefts — “index crimes” used by CPD and the FBI to gauge criminal trends — are all down by double-digit percentages as well.

In an interview with the Tribune, Napolitano said during his time as a CPD officer he witnessed criminal incidents being reclassified to less severe offenses.

“In a lot of cases, you know, you have to go to a supervisor to get permission or the approval to charge or to classify a crime as that UCR code,” Napolitano said. “If not, they’ll tell you what to identify it as.”

“I’ve seen it happen, and I hope that’s not what’s happening here,” he added.

Napolitano represents about 3,000 city workers who call the 41st Ward home. In the 2024 general election, President Donald Trump captured 51% of the votes in the ward, according to records from the Office of Inspector General and Chicago Board of Elections.

Napolitano’s claims came as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also accused Chicago of juking its homicide statistics, without evidence.

“Chicago has also, just like DC, come under scrutiny over discrepancies in its homicide data reporting,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “So as bad as these numbers are, perhaps they are even worse.”

Napolitano emphasized that he wasn’t accusing the department of engaging in a conspiracy, but said, “It’s just weird that, all of a sudden, our numbers have come down drastically and it’s not what people are witnessing on the street right now.”

CPD officers are making more arrests this year, records show. The average daily population of detainees in the Cook County Jail has returned to pre-pandemic levels, even as the SAFE-T Act was passed and implemented, eliminating the cash bail system.

_____

Tribune reporter Alice Yin contributed to this report.

_____