Oklahoma City's Yearly Homicide Count Rises Slightly Above Previous Year

Oklahoma City's 2024 homicide count has hit 78 — three more than the number of homicides in 2023, with only two days remaining in the year.

The increase is also 4 more than in 2022. But, Oklahoma City Chief Ron Bacy noted in a recent interview the city's solve rate has also increased by 1.3% to a total of 89.3%.

"It's an amazing team of investigators," Bacy said. "Homicide is staffed with 16 investigators, 2 supervisors and a captain, and, a professional staff member, and they work extremely hard."

Oklahoma City started tracking certain fentanyl-related deaths as homicides in 2023.

This year, only one of the city's homicides has been fentanyl-related.

Jabee Williams, the executive director of Live Free OKC, said he believes the city is positioned to reduce the numbers in 2025.

"I think with all these different people, who I really feel like have the community's interest at heart, I think we can really see some positive transformation in our city," Williams said, referring to Chief Bacy, District Attorney Vicki Behenna, and Mayor David Holt.

Earlier this year, Williams hosted an inaugural Peace Needs Conference in Oklahoma City focused on bringing together stakeholders involved in violence prevention.

"We need credible messengers," he said. "We need people in the community who can speak into situations that they are able to speak into. We need people in the community who are able to intervene and prevent some of these shootings and stuff like that."

Bacy said his department in 2025 will leverage new technology to solve more homicides, and reduce the rate.

“We’re allowing our community to sign up their cameras with our department so that we can respond a lot quicker with a virtual presence,” he said in a previous interview.

The department was also part of Operation Sonic Boom in 2024, which resulted in 50 arrests and took 193 guns off metro streets.