Why crime in Fairfax Co. fell across several categories in 2025
Crime fell across several categories in Fairfax County last year, Police Chief Kevin Davis told WTOP, touting the agency’s use of emerging technology, recruitment, retention efforts and focus on road safety.
In an interview with WTOP on Friday, Davis said homicides fell 15% in 2025, compared with 2024. There were 12 murders in the Northern Virginia suburb in 2025, and Davis said the department closed all its homicide cases with arrests.
Similarly, nondeadly contact shootings fell 37% and robberies fell 20%.
The positive crime trends come in the backdrop of a similar regional and national reduction in violent crime across the country, Davis said.
But there’s a “bad guy community,” Davis said, of crime suspects who closely monitor the strategies that police departments use. As a result, he said, law enforcement has to evolve to stay ahead.
“They know that there are cameras out there in public spaces that are more likely now than ever before to capture the comings and goings of the vehicle that they’re using to perpetrate their crimes,” Davis said. “We have to recognize that our crime-fighting strategies are paid attention to by every aspect of the community, to include people who commit crimes.”
Stolen cars are down 19%, Davis said, crediting the department’s group of full-time, auto crime enforcement detectives who handle burglaries. Burglaries are down 28%, he said.
“That’s something I hear about whenever I travel throughout Fairfax County. If your car is stolen or if your house is broken into, that invades your sense of privacy in a really, really profound way,” Davis said.
Meanwhile, after watching shoplifting offenses increase for several years, Davis said shoplifting fell 13% in the county in 2025.
He described the offenses as retail crime, “because it’s not little Johnny or little Jane taking a candy bar from the 7-Eleven. It’s not someone who is without food who’s stealing to feed himself or herself. These are retail crimes that are committed, increasingly in an organized way, not only in Fairfax County, but regionally and across our country.”
In Tysons specifically, shoplifting fell 22%, which Davis attributed to a full-time urban team assigned to the community. The group is assigned to not only the mall, “but the entire footprint.”
Fatal motor vehicle deaths were down 57% last year, Davis said, and while fatal pedestrian deaths rose seasonally in 2025, when it got darker earlier in the day, the category fell 20% overall.
The department has a group of full-time detectives who respond to and exclusively handle deadly and nondeadly overdoses and opioid deaths fell 30%, Davis said.
Arrests for driving while intoxicated rose about 7%, and Davis touted an increase in traffic enforcement, particularly a series of campaigns targeting speed, unsafe lane changes, tailgating and distracted driving.
“We could not care less about any citation revenue that the state or the county generates from our enforcement efforts or from our automated enforcement efforts on school buses and other school zones,” Davis said. “We care about changing bad driving behaviors.”
Because the agency has a 3% vacancy rate, its lowest in years, Davis said each of the eight district stations has neighborhood policing teams. They respond to hot spots and monitor crime trends in the areas they oversee.
Hundreds of people and businesses have shared access to their cameras with police, Davis said, emphasizing his belief that a focus on traffic enforcement has a major impact on reducing murders, shootings, robberies and carjackings.
“If folks drive with impunity and think that they’re never going to encounter a uniformed police officer in a marked car, they’re more likely to carry a firearm,” Davis said. “They’re more likely to get in a dispute with someone.“
Business checks and regular communication with school resource officers are also helping drive crime down, Davis said.
“Just because we and others in the region and across the country had a really successful, in terms of data and numbers, 2025, that doesn’t mean that 2026 is going to be an automatic,” Davis said.