However, the city is still battling a perception problem about being safer.
Perceptions about safety often do not line up with reality, and in this new year that will continue to be a challenge for city leaders even as they mark the end of a year where violent crime across the board was down.
"I don't know how many more times in my life I'm gonna be on the front page of the paper," shooting survivor Gentry Hunt said.
Hunt handed out copies of a newspaper that featured the story of him surviving a recent shooting. The volunteer basketball coach gathered with current and former players to discuss the incident for the first time since Sunday night, when Hunt was shot in the shoulder outside the St. Sabina gym during an argument that he had no part in.
"So I'm just grateful that I can tell my story versus having someone else you know, having to tell it for me," Hunt said. "I mean, my pedal is more to the metal that's ever been for 2026. I want to get more kids. I want to get more players in the gym."
Hunt's mother Singrid Jackson hugged him after the meeting.
"This would be a different 2026, for me, had it went any other way," Jackson said.
In many ways, Chicago was different and safer in 2025 than the year before. Preliminary figures show that there were 416 murders in Chicago in 2025. That's down 29% from the year before, and the lowest it's been since 1965.
"So even though the numbers look good, the perception of whether or not you actually feel safe is something completely different," said Anthony Riccio, Monterrey Security Director of Public Safety. "And a lot of times, those two things will never match up. They'll they'll never marry up. So numbers may look good, but if you don't feel safe, that's that's a problem."
Riccio says that's something police and the city will have to continue working on, but he says the reality is perception may never line up with the statistics.
"We need to feel safe," Riccio said. "The numbers are one thing, but it's how you feel when you walk out of your house or when you're driving down the street that's really important as well."
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For Jackson, her son's shooting more real than declining statistics.
I think we may have moments where it looks like it's getting better, but I honestly feel like we're trending in another direction," Jackson said. "It's still a very strange feeling. And everywhere he goes, and everything he does, and every single day, I want to talk to him. I want to hear his voice."
On Friday, in an AI-generated social media post, President Donald Trump continued promoting his "Chicago crime is out of control" narrative, despite statistics showing murder, shootings and violent crime in general were significantly down last year.
"He has no credibility on that argument, but yet, people, at least his people, his base, believes it, and he wants them to continue to think that democratic cities are hell holes, and he's that's going to be continued to be his theme," ABC7 Political Analyst Laura Washington said.
As police and city leaders work to keep violent crime on the downward trend in 2026, they will also have to keep fighting on the public relations front to make people feel safer.
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