FBI says murder rate increased nearly 30% in 2020

The U.S. murder rate increased nearly 30% in 2020, according to the FBI, making that the largest percentage increase in modern U.S. history with almost 5,000 more murders last year than the year before, although it is still down from heights reached during the violent 1990s.

The bureau released its Uniform Crime Report statistics on Monday and estimated there were 21,570 murders in the United States last year, an increase of 29.4% from 2019, with 4,901 additional murders in 2020. In raw numbers, 2020 saw more total murders than any year since 1995, when an estimated 21,610 people were murdered in the U.S., though the total U.S. population has expanded by tens of millions of people since then, meaning the overall murder rate in the U.S. is still lower.

The data shows the murder rate rising to large heights in the summer of 2020 and then remaining above normal the rest of the year. The jump is the biggest since this data started being collected like this in the 1960s.

The bureau said that 15,897 federal, state, county, city, college, and tribal agencies submitted data for the 2020 report. The murder rate is believed to have continued to increase in 2021 from 2020, though at a slower rate than the difference between 2020 and 2019, although data on that is much more limited.

The murder rate in 2020 was roughly 6.5 per 100,000 people, which is still down from the homicide rates in the 1980s and 1990s, but is unprecedented in recent years.

Nationwide unrest was unleashed last year after George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man, died in police custody on May 25, 2020, after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned him down by placing a knee on his neck and back for more than nine minutes as Floyd and onlookers called on the police to stop. Chauvin, 45, was found guilty in April on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter.

Footage of Floyd’s death in police custody set off a wave of outrage, leading to protests in major cities across the nation, many of which became violent as protesters rioted, looted stores, destroyed property, burned buildings, and clashed with