Video Transcript: 2025 was a strikingly low year for crime in Syracuse, but residents don’t feel safe.
Lauren Holdmeyer: Syracuse Police say 2025 was one of the city’s safest years in recent memory.
Sgt. Thomas Blake: We’re always trying to find new ways to, to get these reductions in crime.
Holdmeyer: But it will take more than statistics to convince some Syracuse residents things are turning around.
Ali: I don’t even want to go outside and the cops don’t care.
Holdmeyer: Ali, whose last name we don’t want to reveal for safety reasons, says she’s been facing issues with a neighbor stalking her for years — and 2025 was particularly bad. She kept note of all the times she called Police for help in the last year – 13 in total – each resulting in no help.
Ali: I tell them, you know, things are escalating. It’s getting worse. I’m scared. And they say, “Well, call us when something does happen because we can’t do anything until that happens.”
Holdmeyer: Ali’s not the only one living in fear.
Eva Essi: Crime I don’t feel has gone down.
Holdmeyer: Eva Essi, the owner of Mom’s Diner in Westcott, says her business has been broken into multiple times recently. Here’s her smashed door from 2024.
Essi: Maybe violent crime has. Maybe armed robbery has gone down. Maybe murder has gone down. But as far as petty crime, it’s still rampant and police don’t even come for those crimes.
Holdmeyer: So we took that frustration directly to police.
Holdmeyer: Do you think if you were to go out and ask members of the community here, would they say that they felt like 2025 was safer on, you know, compared to years on last decade?
Blake: Boy, that’s a, that’s a tough question to answer.
Holdmeyer: According to the Syracuse Police Department CompStat Report, crimes in Syracuse dropped 22% in 2025. But for residents here in Wescott, like Ali and Eva, they feel like not all crimes are handled the same.
Essi: If you’re not reporting true crime that’s happening, whether it’s a misdemeanor, whether it’s petty theft or whatever it is, it’s still a crime. It’s still a crime, but you’re slapping them on the wrist and sending them away. And that’s not, that’s not fair.
Ali: I just want them to care about our community the way that I do. You know, we have a right to feel safe where we live.
Holdmeyer: Sergeant Blake says there’s one clear way to solve this.
Blake: We need more people and that’s the reality of it. We are down so many officers right now that we just, we can’t fill these positions that we need to fill.
Holdmeyer: Sergeant Blake says he’s hopeful filling these vacancies will help make Syracuse a safer city for everyone. In Syracuse, Lauren Holdmeyer, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Syracuse city officials are proud of the reported decrease in 2025 crime rates throughout the city. According to the Syracuse Police Department’s CompStat report, all crimes in Syracuse fell 22% compared to the previous year. Notably, homicide was down 39% and all violent crime fell by over 17%. Property crimes were also down 22.9%.
The pandemic was particularly harsh for crime in Syracuse, and Syracuse police and city officials have been working since to get the numbers back down to the pre-pandemic levels. Syracuse Police Sergeant Thomas Blake said though the police department is still working to see better results, he’s happy with how 2025 went.
“By no means are we at the goal line here, but we keep pushing and keep trying to see the decline in overall crime statistics, and so far, so good,” Blake said. “2025 was a great year as far as that goes.”
While 2025 was safer compared to recent years, not all Syracuse residents feel the numbers tell the whole story.
Ali (whose last name we don’t want to reveal for safety reasons) said she’s never felt so unsafe in her Westcott apartment. She said she’s been facing issues with a neighbor stalking her for the last several years. She details incidents that prompted her to call Syracuse police, saying sometimes they wouldn’t even respond to her call.
“The issues that I’ve been having personally have been extremely detrimental to my mental health,” she said. “I don’t even want to go outside, and the cops don’t care.”
Eva Essi, another resident of the Westcott neighborhood and owner of Mom’s Diner in Westcott, has similar feelings. Mom’s Diner has been broken into numerous times over the last several years. Essi said the cost of making these repairs time after time have been detrimental to her business.
“It costs a lot of money to run a business. I mean, our normal bill is triple now. Just keeping the lights on costs a lot of money. So a $1,000 door is a big dent in a small business,” Essi said.
Police position vacancies is one of the main concerns for the Syracuse Police Department currently, according to the mayor’s office. In an attempt to combat this issue, Mayor Sharon Owens is reversing the requirement for Syracuse police officers to live in city limits for the first five years. Now, new Syracuse police officers will be able to reside outside city limits.
Blake said he’s hopeful this will help to fully staff the department.
“They’re doing it for the next two classes. This is completely a move to try to expand our applicant pool because we need more people, and that’s the reality of it. We are down so many officers right now that we can’t fill these positions that we need to fill with making it only available to residents of the city of Syracuse,” Blake said.
Both Ali and Essi support the decision to hire from outside the city. They are hopeful that having a more fully-staffed police force will make Syracuse a safer place to live.
Ali and Essi also both made it clear that they support Syracuse police and empathize with their work. They say ultimately, they just want Syracuse Police to be more prevalent members of the community.
“I feel like people just do need to support the police. We need to look at them as community service members. They need to come out more, I think, and just introduce themselves and be part of the community,” Essi said.
Blake said Syracuse police are not at the finish line in terms of their goal of making Syracuse safer, but that they remain committed to serving the community every day.