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ST. LOUIS — Homicides in the city this year remain down by about 20% from last year, keeping the city on pace for its biggest year-over-year decrease in about 90 years.

As of Monday, officers in the city had responded to 139 homicides so far this year, according to a weekly homicide count provided by St. Louis police. This time last year, that number was 173.

Since 2015, St. Louis has seen about 200 homicides per year, excluding a substantial spike in 2020 when it saw 263. But the city is on pace to remain far below that benchmark this year.

The decrease marks a continuation of the trend St. Louis has seen throughout this year. The city hasn’t seen a year-over-year decrease like this since the 1930s, said Richard Rosenfeld, a longtime criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, in an August interview.

Other reported crimes remain down this year, too: Aggravated assaults were down almost 11% through the end of October. Robberies were down 8%, and burglaries were down more than 10%.

“Many of our efforts this year have revolved around implementing a range of proven crime strategies,� police Chief Robert Tracy wrote in a public message posted to the �There of course remains much work to be done, but I am confident that our layered crime strategies will continue to bring about promising results.�

The vast majority of killings in St. Louis are done with guns, and about half of this year’s homicides were in the northern part of the city, according to a monthly police report.

Trends this year in St. Louis mirror what’s happening in cities across the country. National homicide numbers are down about 12%, according to AH Datalytics, a consulting firm that tracks homicide data for more than 100 cities.

There are some key outlier cities, including a 37% increase in homicides in Memphis, an almost 33% increase in Washington, D.C., and a 12% increase in Dallas.