Boston Shots-Fired Incidents Fell 30% This Year to the Lowest in BPD Records Going Back to 2015; Fatal Shootings Did Not Fall
Police counted 102 shooting victims through Oct. 23, the fewest for that period in 12 years. Eighteen were killed, the same as last year.
Original reporting from public records by Watchman Report staff ·
Boston police recorded 355 shots-fired incidents, in which guns were fired but no one was hit, from Jan. 1 through Oct. 23 this year, down from 508 in the same period of 2025, a drop of about 30%, according to Watchman Report's analysis of the Boston Police Department's public Shots Fired dataset. It is the lowest count for that period in the data, which begins in 2015. The figure peaked at 994 in 2020.
The department's separate Shootings dataset, which counts people struck by bullets, lists 102 victims through Oct. 23, down from 107 last year and 111 in 2024, and the lowest for the period since at least 2015. In 2020 the number was 228. Counted by incident number, there were 76 shooting incidents this year, compared with 91 in the same stretch of 2025.
Deaths did not decline. Eighteen of this year's victims were killed, the same number as in the same period last year and one more than in 2024.
More than half of this year's shooting victims, 53 of 102, were shot in two police districts: B-2, which covers Roxbury (30), and B-3, which covers Mattapan (23). District C-11 in Dorchester had 12 and E-18 in Hyde Park had 11.
The department says both datasets are compiled by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center and carry a seven-day delay. The shootings data exclude self-inflicted wounds and shootings ruled justifiable. A shots-fired incident is counted when ballistic evidence is recovered or, without it, when there is strong witness or officer corroboration; 130 of this year's 355 had ballistic evidence. Figures can change as cases are reviewed.
Watchman Report queried the Boston Police Department's "Shootings" and "Shots Fired" datasets on Analyze Boston (both updated Nov. 2, 2026, with records through Oct. 23) and counted records dated Jan. 1 through Oct. 23 for each year from 2015 to 2026, using the dates as published. Victim, incident, district and year-over-year figures are Watchman Report's calculations. District names are from the Boston Police Department's districts page. No victims or individuals are named.
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