Police collect evidence Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, in the slaying of a man on Division Street. | News4Jax
Published on January 2, 2025 at 3:24 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Jacksonville ended 2024 with a record low number of homicides, reversing more than a decade of killings that exceeded 100 people per year.
The city recorded 69 homicides in 2024 — 59 murders, three manslaughters and seven justifiable homicides, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s official homicide database.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
That was far fewer than the 147 in 2023 and the 160 logged in 2022.
The new all-time low for this century is due to hard work by the Sheriff’s Office in recent years, said Sheriff T.K. Waters. He said it means Jacksonville no longer deserves the label of “murder capital of Florida,” as some have said.
“(It) is a complete mischaracterization of the truth,” Waters told Florida’s Voice late last month.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
“We are a great place, and we find ourselves 57% down from where we were in 2022 and over 50% down from 2023,” he said. “That is largely because of the great people of this city and the hard working men and women and the no-nonsense attitude about law enforcement in this agency.”
The last reported homicide of 2024 was Tuesday on Division Street. A man was found shot to death in a driveway in the Grand Park area about 2:30 a.m., homicide Sgt. Josh Lloyd said.
The total for 2024 could still be adjusted. The department’s database reports that eight deaths in 2024 remain unclassified as either murder, manslaughter or justifiable homicide.
100 or more homicides
The total for 2024 ends 12 straight years of 100 homicides or more, according to numbers logged since 2003 by the Florida Times-Union. Eight of those years included at least 120 deaths.
The high was 177 in 2020. The previous low was 86 in 2011.
The Times-Union says the Sheriff’s Office database does not include the three Beaches cities because they are not in the department’s jurisdiction. Two homicides occurred in Jacksonville Beach in 2024, the Times-Union says.
For comparison, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office reported only one homicide in 2024, out of the 1,654 violent crimes its investigators and deputies handled.
The homicide was the death of Andrea Yarbrough in mid-June. She was found dead in her home off County Road 207 in what the department termed a murder-suicide at the hands of husband, Shawn.
The Sheriff’s Office says about 64% of the 69 cases in 2024 were solved. About 67% were cleared in 2023 and 71% in 2022.
