It looks like 2024 will be the year with the fewest murders in San Francisco since all the way back in 1960, as the city is three weeks away from likely recording its lowest homicide rate in 64 years.  

The national right-wing propaganda machine continues to hammer the narrative that violent crime is spiraling out of control in San Francisco and other Democrat-led cities. A recent Fox News headline declared “Drug addicts fuel violent crime in spiraling San Francisco, expert says,” with the “expert” being some slick-haired Pasadena lawyer who apparently doesn’t visit here very often.  

What this meatball may not realize is that San Francisco is currently on track to have the lowest homicide rate in 64 years, as KTVU reports. The city currently has 33 homicides tallied for 2024 (with exactly three weeks still left in the year), compared to 50 homicides at this point in 2023.

“It wasn't about just a response to violence. It was making sure the violence doesn't happen in the first place," Mayor London Breed declared at a Tuesday press conference touting the numbers.  

A chart earlier this year in the Chronicle shows that 2024's 33 homicides would the fewest since 1960, when we had only 30 homicides, at a time when the city's population was much lower.

This recalls the years 2018 and 2019, when SF recorded similarly low homicide rates, though not this low. There was of course an uptick in all manner of crimes during the pandemic, and the number of homicides crept back up to the mid-50s during those COVID years. But 2024 — and knock on wood, there are still three weeks left — still has fewer murders than 2019 (41 homicides) or 2018 (44 homicides).

In addition to the historically low homicide rate, the SFPD and the District Attorney’s office can also tout an impressive 92% arrest and conviction rate for homicide suspects (though those rates are drastically lower for other crimes). And of all those arrested for homicide this year, nine cases have gone to trial, and eight have resulted in guilty convictions from a jury on the murder charges.

And as for that ninth case? That would be the Bob Lee stabbing trial, where the jury is still deliberating the murder charges against suspect Nima Momeni. That decision is expected to come any day now, or even any hour.

Related: Homicides Were Down So Far This Year In SF, But We May Have Just Had Three In One Week [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 21: A San Francisco Police Department officer inspects the scene of a shooting that left one high school student injured on August 21, 2024 in San Francisco, California. Crime is expected to be a major issue in the Presidential Election. (Photo by Ethan Swope/Getty Images)