Homicide is Soaring in the Green Bay, WI Metro Area

Homicides are rising at a record pace in the United States. According to a recent FBI report, there were a total of 21,570 murders committed in 2020, the most of any year in the last two and a half decades and up nearly 30% from 2019 — the largest annual increase on record.

The spike in homicides came during a tumultuous year. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools and left millions of Americans out of work. Footage of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer rattled confidence in American law enforcement and sparked nationwide protests. Firearms sales soared, and tens of millions of new guns proliferated across communities nationwide. Here is a look at the states where gun sales are surging.

Some experts speculate that each of these factors likely played a role in rising homicide rates nationwide. While it may be years before the precise causal factors are identified, many U.S. cities are bearing the brunt of the rash of deadly violence. In metropolitan areas across the country, the increase in homicides last year eclipsed the national surge — in some cases, many times over.

There were eight homicides reported in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, metropolitan area in 2020, up from five the previous year. Though there were fewer homicides in the area than in many other U.S. cities of similar size, and the local murder rate of 2.5 per 100,000 is well below the 6.5 per 100,000 nationai rate, the 60% year-over-year increase in homicides is far higher than in much of the rest of the country.

Though the number of homicides in the area spiked, reported cases of robbery and rape, two other classifications of violent crime, fell considerably. Aggravated assault cases, meanwhile, increased slightly. Overall, the violent crime rate in Green Bay declined marginally in 2020.

All data in this story is at the metro area level from the FBI. Only metro areas with populations of at least 250,000 residents and at least one homicide in 2019 were considered.