Mayor, public safety officials tout falling crime rate despite spike in homicides

Violent crimes hit five-year low in Sioux Falls

Even though Sioux Falls saw a record number of homicides last year, violent crime in South Dakota’s largest city is at its lowest point since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s how Mayor Paul TenHaken, Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum, and Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar are framing the state of public safety in South Dakota’s largest metro area, which saw its violent crime rate hit a five-year low in 2024.

“We’re the safest we’ve been since pre-COVID, and COVID was a year that exploded crime across our country,” TenHaken said. “That’s a headline.”

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Those remarks came as the mayor addressed reporters Tuesday during a biennial public safety briefing at the Minnehaha County-Sioux Falls Law Enforcement Center in downtown Sioux Falls, where 2024 crime statistics were unveiled.

TenHaken and other public safety officials acknowledged that 16 homicides dominated headlines last year—the most in a single year in Sioux Falls history. But they contend those crimes were not random and were the result of specific situations, not an indication that the general public was in jeopardy.

“You can look at most of those cases and say, ‘That’s why it happened.’ We can understand the circumstances of that. It’s not a lot of random violent crime,” said Haggar, adding that while homicides were up, the number recorded each year tends to fluctuate greatly.

For example, there were two homicides in Sioux Falls in 2023, seven in 2022, five in 2021, and 13 in 2020.

But a comprehensive look at all criminal activity that came onto the radar of area law enforcement paints a more positive picture, TenHaken, Thum, and Haggar said.

For instance, aggravated assaults and burglaries dropped last year. In 2023, there were 826 burglaries compared to 763 last year, and 2024 saw 562 aggravated assaults, 65 fewer than the year before.

And for the first time since 2017, Sioux Falls saw a decrease in the number of stolen vehicles reported. That statistic peaked in 2023 with 1,602 cars reported stolen, but in 2024, the community reported 1,366 vehicle thefts.

The most important statistical indicators the community should look at when assessing whether their city is a safe place to live are the per capita violent crime rate and the per capita property crime rate, Thum said.

“For a community our size, the violent and property crimes committed per 1,000 people are both the lowest they have been since 2020,” he said.

In 2024, there were 5.65 violent crimes for every 1,000 people living in the city. While that’s still higher than the 4.98 violent crimes per 1,000 residents recorded in 2019, it’s lower than in 2020, when the violent crime rate in Sioux Falls jumped to 6.55 offenses per 1,000 residents.

The property crime per capita statistics paint a similar picture. The 36.97 property crimes per 1,000 residents are still up from 2019 levels but below the 37.15 property crimes per 1,000 residents recorded in 2020.