In 2025, as the year before, all of the guns stolen out of vehicles in thefts reported to the Statesboro Police Department were stolen from unlocked vehicles. Once again, none were reported taken from cars or trucks whose owners bothered to lock the doors.

On a brighter note, the number of guns thieves obtained this way was down, just 27 in 2025, compared to 39 the year before. These were related points of interest in the SPD's 2025 annual report and Police Chief Mike Broadhead's commentary when he delivered the booklet and slide show to the mayor and City Council in mid-February 2026.

Another interesting tidbit, supplied anecdotally rather than with exact figures, is that the Taser has slipped in popularity with local officers from its previous position as the favorite "less-lethal force" option when incidents are thought to require one. Broadhead shared that observation while emphasizing that, as a long-term average less than 1% of the arrests Statesboro police officers and detectives make require the use of force.

He started his presentation with the crime statistics, with violent crimes first. During 2025, four homicides, nine robberies and 42 incidents of aggravated assault or battery were reported in Statesboro. The annual levels of these crimes were charted as three color-coded lines on a single graph for the years 2014 through 2025.

"The numbers here are looking pretty good," Broadhead said, and commented specifically on the aggravated assault statistics. "You know two years ago, three years ago we had a really drastic reduction and it kind of bounced back up, and then you see there was a serious decline again last year, which is great news for us."

The number of aggravated assault and battery incidents reported, in the range of 57 to 65 each year from 2017 through 2021, had dropped sharply to 36 in 2022 before picking back up to 61 such crimes in 2023. There were 60 of these crimes reported in Statesboro in 2025, and then those 42 last year.

Robberies still down

Robberies, the police chief noted, have been on a downhill trend here for most of the 11 years shown on his current graph. After topping out at a total of 50 robberies back in 2017, the number reported annually in Statesboro declined to 25 robberies in 2021 and just 12 in 2022, resurging to 24 robberies in 2023, then dropped again to 18 in 2024 and just nine in 2025.

Five years have now passed since he delivered a report that included Statesboro's highest number of homicides in recent decades, 2020, the year of the pandemic partial shutdown. But after nine killings in the city limits in 2020, there were three in 2021, three in 2022, four in 2023, three again in 2024, and four again last year.

Broadhead didn't supply a long-term average, but that makes for an average of 4.33 homicides annually over the past six years, with the 2020 outlier of nine included. Excluding that peak, the five-year average since 2020 has been 3.4 homicides per year.

"We had that 2020 bump, but what I find really interesting is that what we're seeing happen here is what's happening across the country, and that's been true for a decade," he said. "In 2020 we had the most homicides we'd ever had, and so did most of the rest of the country's cities, and then we went back to kind of a more normal rate."

For some earlier background, from 2012 through 2019, Statesboro had from one to four homicides reported annually, with an average of 2.4 a year, a fact reported in the Herald's similar story last year and based on previous SPD annual reports. No attempt is made here to supply a per-capita statistic, but Statesboro's population grew from an April 2010 census count of 28,422 and an April 2020 count of 33,438 to a July 2024 estimate of 35,226, or almost 24% in 20 years.

"We're seeing reductions in crime all the way across the country, and so I'm going to  talk a little bit about why I think that's happening here," said Broadhead.

Upturn in rapes

The fourth officially reported category of violent crime, rapes, was charted separately from the other three, and the graph line looks more like a roller coaster. After a peak number of 25 rapes were reported to Statesboro police in 2021, the numbers fell to 14 in 2022, six in 2023 and seven in 2024, but surged anew to 24 reported rapes last year. 

As in past years, Broadhead expressed doubt about the accuracy of the rape count and thus the meaning of annual variations.

"Last year we talked about rapes being a difficult stat to track because I think the vast majority of legitimate rapes are not reported, for lots of reasons. There was some increase this year, but again we're talking about 24 cases," he said to the mayor and council members Feb. 17.

"I had our analyst go through all 24 of those cases and see what's happening in these cases … what's different," Broadhead continued. "There's not a stranger that's out there abducting people and raping them at the mall.

"These are date rapes, particularly, and sometimes this number is driven by education as much as anything," he said. "Once young women, particularly at the university, get educated about what it means to be raped, then they tend to be more open to reporting it."

He said talks about this number "just to have a conversation about it" but thinks it "is nowhere near accurate."

Anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse or assault or has knowledge of any such incident is advised to call 911 or contact The Teal House, Statesboro Regional Sexual Assault and Child Advocacy Center, located at 209 S. College St., Statesboro, GA 30458. The phone number is (912) 489-6060. The 24-Hour Crisis Line is (866) 489-2225.

Property crime

The chart for property crimes showed the numbers for thefts and burglaries trending downward for the most part in the nine years since 2016. "Thefts" is a catch-all category for non-robbery thefts of property. Burglary means unlawfully entering a structure with intent to commit a crime, whether or not anything is taken.

The number of burglaries reported in Statesboro hit a highpoint of a little over 200 in one year back in 2016, but there were only 62 burglaries in 2024 and 51 burglaries in 2025.The trend line for thefts showed more hills and valleys but still sloped generally downward, from well over 800 total thefts in 2014 to 497 in 2024, with an uptick to 521 thefts in 2025. 

Guns from vehicles

For several years now, Broadhead has been making a point about guns being easily stolen from unlocked vehicles, whose owners may unintentionally supply guns for criminals. Guns stolen in "entering auto" incidents here sometimes turn up during arrests in other states, as well as some high-profile local shootings.

From a total of 30 gun thefts from vehicles in Statesboro in 2019 – including four "forced" thefts from locked cars, trucks and SUVs and 26 "not forced" thefts from apparently unlocked vehicles, the incidence of this crime surged to 58 vehicle gun thefts – five forced and 53 not forced – in 2020.

Since then, the total number has trended down, notched back up and trended down again. But one thing that has been consistent is that the number of guns stolen each year in "not forced" thefts from unlocked vehicles far exceeds the number stolen by forced entry to locked vehicles.

After 50 guns were stolen from unlocked vehicles and just two from unlocked vehicles in Statesboro in 2023, the total number fell to 39 guns stolen from unlocked vehicles and none at all from locked vehicles in 2024, and declined further to 27 gun thefts from unlocked vehicles and none again from locked vehicles in 2025.

Of 302 guns stolen out of vehicles here over a seven-year period, just 21 were taken by forced entry of locked vehicles.