The number of homicides in Birmingham for the first three months of 2025 are down nearly 50 percent over the same time period in 2024 — a year that saw the city’s number of violent deaths reach record highs.

As of Monday, there had been 19 homicides since New Year’s Day, down from 36 in the first quarter of 2024.

That is a drop of more than 47 percent, and comes after Birmingham ended 2024 with 152 homicides, the highest number of killings in the city since 1933.

Historically, the first quarter of any year sees fewer homicides.

[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]

However, the number of homicides from January through the end of March 2025 is the lowest the city has recorded in a three-month period since the second quarter of 2017, according to an AL.com analysis of the homicide tallies.

Not only have homicides dropped, but the department’s clearance rate in killings this year is at an all-time high.

In the 19 homicides so far, arrests have been made in 15 of those cases.

“Some good police work is going on,‘’ said Birmingham Interim Police Chief Michael Pickett.

“I think we’re seeing a decrease because of the intentionality of all of our police in Birmingham,‘’ Pickett said.

“That’s the intentional, and quite frankly aggressive, nature of how we’re pursuing our most violent offenders, how we’re swiftly taking them to jail when they’ve committed a crime and getting them in custody.”

The year got off to a violent start, with three men killed countywide in the first 24 hours of 2025 countywide, one of those in Birmingham.

Derek Marcus Burpo, 51, was a Dominos deliveryman killed during a robbery in 400 block of Roebuck Drive on Birmingham’s east side.

The deadly shooting happened about 9 p.m. on New Year’s Day, and his slaying remains unsolved.

The city would go on to have a total of eight homicides in January, and eight in February, the last one taking place on Feb. 15 when 21-year-old Tre’Von Douglas was fatally shot months before the birth of his son.

Following Douglas’s death, there was a lull in the bloodshed.

The city went one month – from Feb. 15 through March 15 – without anyone slain.

In late 2009 and early 2010, Birmingham went 39 days without a homicide. In 2014, the city went 31 days without a homicide.

Three people were then killed in March, down from 15 in March of 2024.

‘A lot of our most violent offenders are off the street’

Pickett earlier this year unveiled the department’s eight-point crime reduction strategy which includes the Special Enforcement Team.

The SET is made up of officers selected from throughout the department who don’t respond to calls but instead patrol crime hot spots.

Those officers target the most dangerous criminals based on intelligence from multiple sources including BPD Intel, precinct commander reports, and ShotSpotter data.

Pickett put the team together in the summer of 2024, and made it permanent in December when he became the interim chief.

“Our patrol officers are patrolling more intentionally. I feel morale has increased, and we’re seeing a reflection of that,” Pickett said.

“And our Special Enforcement Teams are focused more intently on our violent offenders.”

“I think taking them off the street, intercepting them before they have the opportunity to shoot someone or take someone’s life is having an impact,‘’ he said.

“I also think what is having an impact is some of the significant arrests that we’ve made.”

In addition to making arrests in all but four of the homicides so far this year, detectives in the first quarter of 2025 also made an arrest in a 2023 murder – the shooting death of Birmingham Firefighter Jordan Melton – as well as 12 homicides cases from last year.

“Of those 13 cases, we have made 24 arrests for either capital murder or murder, because some cases have multiple suspects,” Pickett said.

“This first quarter we have really leaned into anyone who has committed a homicide or violent crime, this year as well as 2024,” he said.

Pickett thinks the trigger-pullers or would-be trigger-pullers are taking notice.

“I think criminals are seeing it. Maybe they’re realizing ‘I want to rethink doing this,‘” he said.

“I think some of them are behind bars. A lot of our most violent offenders are off the street instead of continuing to reoffend.”

By the end of 2024, homicide detectives had made arrests in 57% of the killings, a dramatic increase over the 38% clearance rate in 2023.

The national average is around 57.8%.

As of Monday, the 2025 clearance rate was at nearly 79 percent.

“What’s different is, I really feel, is the intentionality behind the investigations,” Pickett said.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t occurring before, but I like to focus on being very thorough and moving at a bit of a faster pace – not at a pace that discredits the investigation – but at a pace to where we turn over every rock, and we walk down every lead in as timely manner as possible until we’ve exhausted every lead.”

Pickett said it is important that detectives have the tools they need to do the job, and said he’s tried to make that happen.

He also tracks each homicide investigation through the department’s shooting review process.

“We have discussions about it. We talk about everything the detective has done on it, and I try to suggest maybe things they haven’t considered,” he said.

“They can discuss with leadership what roadblocks they’ve run into, and we figure out how we can help them. We try to work with them to give them everything they need to investigate that case.”

“I’m going to be honest,” he said. “I set high expectations.”

‘I want 2025 to be one of the best years we’ve had’

Pickett’s passion is enforcement.

He spent six years on BPD’s Crime Reduction Team, working with the U.S. Marshals and has a strong background in fugitive apprehension.

“That was one of my most absolute favorite jobs,‘’ he said.

“We worked so closely with homicide, it gave me a good understanding of what homicide was looking for, the evidence and everything,” he said.

“I had to understand the totality of the investigation to be able to assist them with the apprehension.”

When a 55-year-old man was shot to death on an Interstate 59 off-ramp following a dispute over a fender bend in February, it was Pickett who led officers to the suspect in Pleasant Grove.

“I went out and rode the area that I believed he was in and located the car,” he said.

“That was what I used to do. That was a good way for me to show them when a crime happens, go to where the evidence is taking you, and look around and see what you can find. Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place.”

Pickett said he doesn’t advocate rushing an investigation.

“But some things need to be walked down in a timely manner because the preservation of evidence is important when you’re trying to put that case together,” he said.

“We’re still solving cases from 2024 so clearly it takes time sometimes, but you have to triage it.”

Pickett said it’s hard for police to prevent a homicide.

“When someone has the intent of killing someone, more likely than not they’re going to wait for the opportunity, they’re going to plan it,” he said.

“Sometimes things are in the moment. Sometimes it’s an argument or confrontation that they didn’t plan to get themselves into, and nine times out of 10 police aren’t there to intervene and deescalate.”

Making swift arrests helps to prevent more violence.

First, it cuts down on retaliation homicides, which often plays a role in Birmingham killings.

“We’ve taken the person off the streets, so we’ve neutralized the ability for retaliation,” he said.

The chief also believes it serves as a deterrent.

“If people see homicides going unchecked, they feel empowered and emboldened to either continue to do it or to enjoin whoever is doing it,” he said.

“So, in that manner, I think we can reduce or prevent homicides.”

Is the current success sustainable?

“That is definitely my goal,” Pickett said.

“I know that crime changes, I know that the nature of the way a criminal’s mind works is they see things and they adjust, and police have to do that as well and we have to do it as swiftly as they do it.”

“It’s always going to be a cat and mouse game between the good guys and the bad guys,” he said.

“My full intention is to try to stay ahead of the curve, try to study the trends of what’s popping up and think ahead of how they may try to shift, what they may do next to try to outsmart us and just be ahead of the curve.”

Pickett said it’s important that the community know that aggressive policing, or focused deterrence, is aimed at criminals, not the public at large.

“I know people are seeing a lot of our enforcement side right now,” he said. “We don’t want to alienate and target an entire community.”

“There’s so many good law-abiding citizens in Birmingham and I’m talking about all over the entire city,” he said.

“So, we never say we’re going to focus on a particular area – we’re focused on violent individuals who want to break the law in our city.”

Pickett said he’s proud of the men and the women in the department.

“They have really been showing up. They’ve always shown up but in this first quarter, I challenged them to be locked in in 2025 and with the decrease that I have seen in crime, they are,” he said.

“When I go out in the community, people are constantly saying, ‘we feel a difference, we see a difference.‘”

The chief said he passes that on to the officers and detectives who might not hear it otherwise.

“I just want to keep this going,” he said. “I want 2025 to be one of the best years we’ve had in a very long time.”