SPRINGFIELD – Two years after the city saw a record number of homicides, the rate fell in 2025 to the 25-year average of 17 killings.
After 32 homicides in 2023, police say they intensified efforts to apprehend violent offenders.
“When you have a year like that, you have to respond aggressively,” said Springfield Deputy Police Chief Steven Kent. “We are always aggressive, but you have to pull out all the stops after something like that.”
The overall rate of gun violence also dropped in 2025 by nearly half from the two previous years, with 49 people injured in shootings and the number of shell casings found at shooting scenes to 2,020.
Still, police continue to seize illegally owned guns at the nearly same rate since 2022.
The city saw the worst gun violence ever in 2023, with 32 homicides that included the death of a 10-year-old and her 54-year-old grandmother, allegedly at the hands of a neighbor on a drug binge; a 16-year-old shot to death while apparently trying to steal a car; and a 56-year-old killed after a dispute with another man.
That year also set other records, with 4,141 shell casings recovered at different scenes and 348 guns seized. Non-fatal shootings totaled 93, one fewer than 2021, when there were 17 homicides.
But this past year returned to average — and even below average, with non-fatal shootings totaling 49. That was much lower than the five-year average of 83 people wounded or killed annually.
The number of shell casings found in 2025 year dropped by half, even with the addition of more audio ShotSpotter devices that detect shootings even if no one reports them, said Ryan Walsh, the Springfield Police Department spokesman.
The city also had no fatal shootings between July 12 and Nov. 30. That four-month period may be a record for the city. However, at least three people were stabbed to death during those months.
Stepped-up crime fighting
Since 2023, Springfield has put more officers on the street and police have worked even more closely with task forces, most of which are organized through Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni’s office.
Going after repeat offenders is a priority for law enforcement. “The work we do to arrest violent offenders … has made a difference,” Gulluni said.
Gulluni used the example of the Springfield neighborhood around High, Temple and Union streets, a small but densely populated neighborhood where at least five people were shot and killed in about a month’s time in the spring of 2023.
Local, federal and state police and the district attorney’s office came together to crack down on drug dealing and gun violence in the neighborhood using a variety of investigative techniques. In 2025, there were no homicides in that neighborhood.
“We all came together and said, ‘This is really bad,’” Gulluni said. “It curbed violence in that area.”
The task forces join federal law enforcement agents, state police troopers and detectives from different communities to give police more investigative manpower and expertise, Kent said.
“You have a very small percentage of people who are behaving like this,” he said of criminal suspects. “If you can target them and remove them from the equation, it helps a lot.”
Kent used the example of the June 2024 shooting of Officer Nestor Santos, which was followed by a chaotic rolling gun battle that left a pregnant woman, a bystander and three Massachusetts Department of Transportation workers injured. A total of seven people were arrested and jailed, taking dangerous repeat offenders off the street for some time.
Santos, who was shot in the calf and temple, lost an eye in the violence. He returned to work on the anniversary of the crime, Walsh said.
The 22 cities and towns in Hampden County saw 40 homicides in 2023, much higher than average. That dropped by half in 2025, with 17 in Springfield and one each in Chicopee, Holyoke and Holland, he said.
Last year brought a lot of different and unrelated crimes. There were 10 deaths by gun violence and at least five stabbings. In one, two roommates were stabbed to death by a third who later hung himself in their State Street home. In another, two men were stabbed in the Six Corners neighborhood by an assailant who has not been arrested and one died.
“It was sporadic, there was no direct linkage from one shooting to the other, Capt. Trent Duda, the head of the detective bureau and homicide unit, said of 2025. “In past years, you could actually link shootings and murders to each other and we haven’t had that this year.”
In 2025, most of the victims were killed by people who they knew. Some had a direct relationship with the people who killed them and others knew them indirectly, he said.
“We didn’t have the typical gang shootings, for a lack of a better term … it wasn’t crazy random,” Duda said.
In past gang shootings, members of one will target those in another for no reason other than the fact they are rivals. In other cases, members will drive through the territory of another and open fire because they believe anyone in that area is likely a member of their rival gang. Duda called them crimes of opportunity.
Gang violence remains consistent in the city, but in 2025, police did not see upticks sparked by turf wars or battles over drugs and retaliation shootings. That was common in 2023 and in previous years, Duda said.
Detectives have cleared 12 of the 17 homicides in 2025, mostly with arrests, but at least one suspect died.
Clearing those crimes works as a deterrent, Gulluni said.
In 2025, 20 previous cases were resolved either by the suspect going to trial or pleading guilty. When that happens, Gulluni believes it sends a message to the criminal element in the community: They will be held accountable and face a long jail sentence.
Two homicides that have not been solved are those of JoAnn Garelli, 56, of West Springfield, whose body was found dumped in Forest Park on Jan. 7, and Meggan Meredith, 45, of Springfield, who was found dead April 24 in a grassy area of the Connecticut Riverwalk and Bikeway near 1150 West Columbus Ave.
With it being relatively rare for two victims to be found in wooded areas in Springfield, social media speculators started panicking people by trying to link the two deaths and several others in Connecticut to a serial killer. The rumors became so rampant that Gulluni publicly asked people to stop.
He said the social media posts make it difficult for investigators and added to the trauma of family and friends of the victims.
“At this time, there is no indication that these incidents are connected to each other or are … part of a larger public safety threat,” Gulluni said. “We are actively working every lead and deploying every available resource.”
Both cases continue to be actively investigated. The police department is awaiting analysis of many items found at the scenes that have been sent to the State Police Crime Lab, which is historically backed up, Duda said.
“There are obvious similarities, but there are significant differences,” Duda said of the two homicides.
Getting guns off streets
A consistent effort to get unlawful guns off the street has helped reduce shootings, Duda said.
Over the past four years, police have seized more than 310 guns a year. The 2025 total of 347 was just one less than in 2023.
Just under half of the guns, or 164, were confiscated by the Firearms Investigative Unit in probes that targeted gun trafficking and people known to be in possession of more than one illegally owned firearm. The rest were found by officers in a variety of divisions.
“Uniform officers have a greater tendency to, in routine enforcement, stumble across guns,” Duda said. “These guys are just enforcing the law, which is scarier, the number of guns they come across on routine patrol.”
The Firearms Unit was created in 2021 to replace the troubled narcotics bureau and as the public called for a crackdown on the increasing gun problems in the city. There are 25 people in the unit, with others training to join.
“They are getting the job done and they are putting together great investigations,” said Capt. Joseph Dunn, who heads the unit. “Other (law enforcement) agencies are asking us all the time for information about how we do things and how we go about our investigations.”
One significant arrest involved a raid in which police used a warrant to grab a 3D printer a man was using to make devices that will turn any gun into an automatic weapon. The tools, often called Glock switches, allow a shooter to spray as many as 50 bullets in seconds.
“We are still seeing Glock switches but not in the numbers we saw last year,” Dunn said.
The investigations done by the unit tend to target the same people involved in shootings regularly, Dunn said.
Springfield police have confiscated 1,577 illegally owned guns in five years, police said.
“The number of people shot this year has dropped,” Duda said. “Obviously the correlation is if there are less guns on the street, there is less violence.”
Juvenile crime
Meantime, the problem of juvenile crime continues to be a concern, police say, especially when those under 18 are rarely held after arrests. When teens face few consequences for violent offenses, it leads to them to continue committing crimes. Rarely does someone commit a homicide for their first crime, police said.
“There is a direct correlation. One of the kids who was on a tear breaking into cars and having guns committed a murder,” Duda said.
That homicide was the second of the year and took the life of Samaj-Nassyr Brewster, 19, an employee at a Western Massachusetts restaurant. In June, police arrested a 16-year-old for the crime, which took place Jan. 12, 2025, on Oakland Street. The 16-year-old, who was later identified as Armoni Davis, is being held without bail.
“We have juveniles breaking into cars and pointing guns at homeowners when they come out to tell them to get away from their car. That has happened several times,” Kent said.
Gulluni echoed police officials’ concerns about juvenile crime, calling it an ongoing problem. Courts, he said, are “not meting out justice and accountability.”
While the focus on rehabilitation is good for youthful offenders, Gulluni said the courts have to do better to ensure that defendants aged 14 to 16 involved in gang activity and charged with possession of firearms, shootings, drug dealing will face serious consequences. That’s not yet happening, he said.
“When they come in, they go right back out,” Gulluni said, referring to what he sees as the revolving door of juvenile court.
Car thefts have dropped the past two years. Much of that is connected to repairs made to Hyundais and Kias models that made them easy to steal with a screwdriver and USB cable. Still, car thefts in Springfield remain higher than statewide averages, Walsh said.
Springfield Police Department crime statistics
| Year | Homicides | Shell casings recovered | Guns seized |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 17 | 2,020 | 347 |
| 2024 | 17 | 3,865 | 313 |
| 2023 | 32 | 4,141 | 348 |
| 2022 | 15 | 2,242 | 314 |
Frustration with legislators
Police express frustration that people arrested for serious crimes can be released on low or no bails. Rather than the district attorney or judges, they blame legislators who are “out of touch” with what happens in Springfield and other urban environments.
“The attitude that comes from the Statehouse of ‘putting criminals behind bars is a bad thing’ is not working,” Kent said. “You think you are being altruistic or whatever, but all you are doing is victimizing the people who are trying to live their lives.”
Police work with Gulluni and his staff attorneys to at least try to get repeat offenders and those charged with felonies to face dangerousness hearings. These proceedings can hold a defendant for 180 days before trial.
With the exception of domestic homicides last year, every person arrested in Springfield had previously committed a crime, Duda said.
“It’s a small number. We are not talking about incarcerating half the population of Springfield. We are talking about incarcerating repeat offenders,” he said.
“I think the court system is catching up to the community needs,” Gulluni said. “I think the system is getting better at seeing the nature of violence.”
