COLUMBIA — Before the regularly scheduled Columbia City Council meeting, council members met for a pre-council work session to discuss downtown crime trends.
They were joined by three members of the Columbia Police Department, including Police Chief Jill Schlude.
The report presented crime data from 2019 to present.
According to the presentation, the report analyzed data exclusive to the Columbia Police Department's downtown beat and did not include data from the MU Police Department or other sources.
The downtown report included any area north of MU's campus, south of Park Avenue, west of Providence Road and east of William Street.
The report details year-over-year crime data from Sept. 16, 2025, to Sept. 15, 2026, compared to Sept. 16, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2025.
The report stated there was a 47.8% increase in reported downtown crime, but a 1.8% decrease in reported citywide crime.
The Columbia Police Department credits the increase in reported crime to the increase in enforcement.
"You can't just look at the crime stats and make jump decisions about what a number means," Schlude said. "If you do in this case, you'd walk away and think crime is up 48% downtown, when in reality, enforcement is up so much that it's driving the number up because we're detecting more crimes."
Later in the report, data showed shots fired/shooting incidents in downtown Columbia and citywide, comparing every year from 2019 to 2026.
The report does not distinguish between what is considered a shots-fired incident and what is considered a shooting incident, but defines both terms.
Over 65% of the shots fired downtown came after midnight and before 3 a.m., a time in the early morning that the report refers to as "bar close."
Schlude believes the simplest solution is making sure people don't have firearms on them.
"Our whole goal from the very beginning, once we started recognizing we were having an issue with more gun-related crime, was try to make it uncomfortable for people who should not be carrying firearms downtown to be carrying them," Schlude said.
In the report, data on simple assaults in the last 12 months is also compiled into a heat map. The high assault area on the map is centered around Broadway between Ninth and Tenth streets, stretching north toward Walnut Street and south toward Cherry Street.
Simple assaults are defined as assaults that do not cause serious injury and are weaponless.
According to the report, "Officer presence alone has not been enough to deter shootings and large fights," but "enforcement has been effective at limiting the number and severity of crimes downtown."
