Chester city homicides fall 85% this summer

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Following similar trends across the country, the city of Chester has experienced an 85% decline in homicides since June.

The hottest months of the year tend to coincide with more violence. There were seven homicides during the summer of 2024. There has been one homicide this summer.

“All of this comes from nothing but networking, collaboration, and partnership,” Police Commissioner Katrina Blackwell told WHYY News.

Blackwell presented the statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Report during a presentation at Wednesday’s city council meeting.

The Chester Police Department and the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office launched Operation Chester Safe Summer in June.

Rather than prioritize arrests, the initiative put more law enforcement personnel on foot patrol to strengthen the relationship with the surrounding community. Officials said they hoped visibility would serve as a deterrence. The city also engaged with local nonprofits to host community events.

Officials opened Memorial Park Pool in a timely manner and organized a summer food program to feed kids. The Chester Partnership for Safe Neighborhoods held block parties in targeted neighborhoods while city officials orchestrated violence prevention phone calls.

Not only did Chester face a steep decline in homicides, but reports of arson, assault, burglary, robbery, sexual assault and theft dropped as well.

“These are great numbers,” Councilmember Fred Green said. “It just shows that crime is down and Chester is on the move.”

Many of the encouraging crime trends preceded the summer. According to Blackwell, there were 121 reported instances of assault and 15 instances of homicide from January 2024 to June 2024. During that comparable time in 2025, there were 32 reported cases of assault and seven instances of homicide.

​​”We saw what our community needed and they needed our presence more than anything,” Blackwell said. “The presence was most important — and that’s what we had to do.”

Chester’s progress comes in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s mobilization of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. and takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. Despite violent crime reaching a 30-year low in the nation’s capital, Trump has strengthened his grip on the city’s law enforcement and threatened to conduct similar actions in other major cities.

“I think it’s horrifying,” Blackwell said. “It takes away what the police department is doing. It takes away from the relationship that people have built with the community and the police department.”

Chester Mayor Stefan Roots is proud of what the city has achieved in regards to crime reduction. He credited organizations such as Making a Change Group and their Gun Violence Intervention Network and Empowerment initiative for also providing outreach during instances of conflict.

“As long as the numbers keep coming down, we’re going to continue to pile on to activities that support that type of reduction,” Roots said.