Archibald: ‘Murder capital’ crime plummets, but that’s not the whole story

NewsA Birmingham Police vehicle seen driving through Five Points South in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, June17, 2026. (Will McLelland/AL.com)Will McLellandBy John Archibald | jarchibald@al.comI’ve been tracking Birmingham’s murders for 40 years. I’ve never seen anything like this. None of us has.We’re more than halfway through the year – 55% through, actually – and the city perpetually known for its homicidal tendencies has suffered only 25 killings. Fewer, it seems, than Montgomery.I know, I know. Only 25 murders is an affront to those who cared about LaModrick Lovejoy or Cornelius Parker or Imahd Lamon Gee and the others who died this year. Only 25 homicides is 25 too damn many.But it would be wrong not to point it out, to celebrate the sea change. Just two years ago I was writing a distress call for a city “under siege.” A bloody summer led to a mass shooting – allegedly murder for hire – that killed four people and injured 17 more in the lights of the city’s Southside entertainment district. It was a year that ended with 152 slayings. Just two years ago.I almost hate to say this, I don’t want to jinx it, but Birmingham is on pace to end the year with 45 homicides. That would be the second-lowest homicide total since the city started keeping count in the early 20th century. Only in 1951 did Birmingham record fewer killings, with 44. That spring police declared victory over the city’s stubborn reputation as “the murder capital of the world.”“That’s all over,” Detective Capt. C.L. Pierce told the Birmingham Post-Herald in the spring of 1951 – even after a young man borrowed a hammer from a neighbor and used it to beat a taxi driver to death.But Pierce jinxed it. That was before a salesman shot his wife four times later that year and stuffed her in the trunk of his car.I’m not sure we can be confident in the homicide numbers of the 1950s, anyway. I have been told there were times police in those days simply did not count murders involving Black victims. As if they weren’t real people.I covered crime in Birmingham in the late ‘80s and early ’90s, when the city topped 100 homicides every year, when it again deserved consideration for homicide capital of the world. I came to believe then, and still do, that many murders are impossible to prevent. Police often can’t know when a salesman stuffs his wife in the trunk, or when a young man picks up a hammer and takes his rage out on the man in front of him. What they can do is solve them.And what’s happening after people are killed in Birmingham may be just as remarkable as the reduction in deaths.In 2024 police only solved – the term they prefer to use is cleared – 38% of the homicides. Less than four out of every 10 killings. This year police have cleared 92%, 23 out of the 25. That’s nine out of 10, and the numbers show clearance rates for overall crime with similar numbers.Why the decrease in murders and the increase in performance? Did that 8-point crime plan work? Is it just part of a national trend? Is that young police chief Michael Pickett some kind of genius? Or is it just dumb luck.I don’t know. We’re gonna need to see if they got the right suspects, whether it all holds up in court and if it can continue. I’m not ready to say “that’s all over” like that ‘50s Birmingham detective. Mayor Randall Woodfin has thoughts.“We got a chief that’s kicking ass and all the men and women under him are kicking ass too,” the mayor said.Which I like. Assuming that’s a metaphor. It’s nice, on occasion, to say “good job.”Unless I jinx it.John Archibald is an opinion writer, author and podcaster who has written about politics, injustice, and life in Alabama for almost 40 years. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and in 2024 was...