With just 3 homicides in 2026, early intervention efforts by St. Paul police continue to pay off

Pieces of tape still cover the holes where bullet fragments struck the outside of Wanda Turner's home in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul, Minn., more than a decade ago. For Turner, 69, It's a visual reminder of the constant shootings she used to hear.

Over the past two years, however, Turner said she's noticed a sharp decline in gunshots in her area, lining up with a major reduction in homicides in the city in both 2025 and the first four months of 2026.

"It's been quiet lately," she said, adding that she's been encouraged by the lower number of killings in the city. "I feel extremely good about that."

St. Paul had 15 homicides in 2025 - down from 30 in the previous year. That reduction has continued so far in 2026, with just three homicides so far this year. All were shootings.

In an interview, two officers overseeing homicide investigations and the major crimes division for the St. Paul Police Department credited the reduction to a few factors, including the work of the new nonfatal shooting unit, which solely focuses on solving such cases with the same level of resources as homicides.

Jeff Stiff, a deputy chief who oversees the major crimes division, said there's a significant focus within the department on making sure investigations are thorough to ensure a charge can be filed, which in turn keeps repeat offenders off the streets.

"We don't just take a gun off the street; we make sure that there's a good case attached to that gun when we take it off the street - that's effective," Stiff said.

The nonfatal shooting unit is so effective that it's led to the creation of a similar unit in Minneapolis, which has seen 14 homicides this year compared to eight this time last year.

Stiff said the homicide reductions are the result of not just the efforts of its 14-member homicide unit but other units as well, such as investigators assigned to domestic violence incidents.

"There a lot of key indicators in domestic violence for homicide in itself, or lethality, so a lot of really good investigators in our domestic violence unit," Stiff said.

So far this year and for all of 2025, St. Paul had a 100% homicide "clearance rate" - how often police close a case through an arrest or an exceptional reason such as a suspect's death.

It's unique to have a full homicide clearance rate for a city as large as St. Paul, and that rate is much higher than the estimated nationwide homicide clearance rate of 61.4% in 2024.

Residents in Dayton's Bluff on the city's East Side credit programs that help steer children and teenagers away from crime and into other passions.

Shawn Miles, an 18-year-old high school student, established a clothing line called "Root of Sins," a name that embraces the fact that he and many other teens he knows have grown up witnessing crime, including fatal gun violence. By recognizing these problems, he said he wants his brand to inspire others to "uproot" the pattern of sins in the community.

"With all that's happening around me, I can embrace that into something that can keep me straight forever, keep my family straight," Miles said.

Turner, who is retired and lives with her husband, said she thinks the improvements in her neighborhoods are because repeat offenders who had been on the streets are now serving time for their sentences.

While she's relieved by the improvements, she said she's also been bothered by what she thinks is excessive police SUV presence in her neighborhood. Her daughter was recently unnerved when a police car looped around the block four times as she waited for her mom to exit the house.

"I know you're supposed to look out for people, but you just can't keep eyeballing people and they feel uncomfortable," she said.

African American Leadership Council President Tyrone Terrill works alongside the Ramsey County Attorney's Office to run a county youth intervention team helping kids avoid getting involved in criminal activity.

Terill said one of the major factors he's noticed is that many of the boys in his program haven't had their active fathers in their lives.

"Most of my boys talk about not having a father," he said. "They haven't had somebody that really shows them how to be a man, and girls need it equally as well. So it's about talking to them consistently, about making right decisions."

While he believes the intervention work is a major part of the improvement, he thinks the primary reason for the drop in homicides last year was due to the nonfatal shooting unit. Through the work that unit is doing and intervention groups such as his, Terrill said he is optimistic about the possibility of homicides continuing to decline.

And while "three is still too many" homicides so far this year, he was optimistic about the changes he's seeing.

"I think we're going to continue to see a decline," he said.

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This story was originally published April 19, 2026 at 4:41 PM.