October 2025: Lurie's War on Drugs Continues as Police Enforcement Results in 19.2% Increase in Drug Crime Incidents
Property crimes fell 25% year-over-year while drug crime incidents climbed nearly 50% for the year, fueled by a 134% spike in the Mission
Key Takeaways
🏠 Property Crime: Decreases 6% from September, with 194 fewer incidents citywide and a 25% drop from last year. 👉Dashboard Link
💊 Drug Incidents: Police activity results in an increase of drug crime incidents by 19% citywide with 92 more cases than September, concentrated in the Mission and Tenderloin districts. 👉Dashboard Link
🏚️ Homeless Concerns: Decrease 12% with 682 fewer 311 reports, offering temporary relief amid 2025’s overall upward trend. 👉Dashboard Link
🚓 Traffic Stops: Increased by 18%, with 510 additional traffic stops by police than September. 👉Dashboard Link
🚁 SFPD Drone Flights: (NEW METRIC) Drone flights are up +906% year-to-date, roughly 3 a day in August. 👉Dashboard Link
🐱 Animal Reports: “Dead Animal” pickups logged Jan–Oct 2025 citywide have increased by 8% this year, with 170 more dead animals collected citywide than last year.
The Story in Data
October delivered San Francisco’s most schizophrenic public safety report card in months, and somehow, that’s actually good news. Property crime kept its winning streak alive with another double-digit drop, while drug enforcement incidents exploded by 19.2% as SFPD earned their overtime. Homelessness reports took a rare breather, falling 12.1% from September, though let’s not break out the champagne just yet, year-over-year numbers are still up 24.8%.
The Mission and Tenderloin remained ground zero for basically everything, accounting for outsized shares of both the problems and the progress. Districts 6 and 9 saw major property crime declines while simultaneously logging the biggest spikes in drug incidents.
The bottom line? We’re finally seeing what happens when enforcement meets intention. Auto break-ins continue their retreat, drug dealers are getting scooped up by the dozen (especially on Wednesdays and Fridays, apparently), and fewer people are calling 311 about encampments. It’s messy, it’s uneven, and it’s nowhere near finished—but it’s movement. And in San Francisco, we’ll take what we can get.
💊 Police Crackdown Spikes Drug Incident Numbers
In September we reported a 374% increase in drug incidents in Potrero Hill and a 54 month low in violent crime in the Mission as police enforcement increased across the city. This month we’re reporting that this wasn’t just a bump. October’s drug crime incidents increased 19.2% from September’s 479 to 571 citywide. In late October SFPD ran intensified crackdowns with multi-agency help, reporting 70+ arrests and multi-pound narcotics seizures in the final days of the month. 2025’s drug crime incidents are 49.1% higher than the same period last year.
District 9’s increase was particularly significant, registering 134% above its recent two-year average of 69 monthly incidents. The Mission neighborhood alone saw incidents climb from 121 to 167, making it the focal point of October’s increase alongside the Tenderloin, which increased from 142 to 190 incidents. The nature of enforcement also shifted in October, with incidents resulting in adult citations or arrests increasing 26% .
Data suggests that police are particularly active on Wednesdays and Fridays, which saw the largest increases in drug-related incidents.
Year-to-date figures reveal a change from previous declining trends, with 5,263 drug incidents reported through October 2025 - 48% above the 3,545 incidents recorded during the same period in 2024. The geographic distribution of these incidents has evolved throughout the year, with the Mission seeing a 152% year-over-year increase compared to 2024 (1,137 vs. 452).
🐱 Is It Safe to be a Cat in San Francisco?
When a beloved local cat died at 16th and Mission in October, the story went global and everyone lost their minds over autonomous vehicles. Cue the Waymo panic. But here’s the thing: the data says we’re barking up the wrong tree, or chasing the wrong car, if you will.
Waymos are the least of our cats’ problems. The real killer? Our streets.
The grim news is that city data shows that dead animal pickups are up 8% citywide this year. In the Mission, they’ve jumped 9%, with 250 dead animals collected so far—that’s 20 more than this time last year. San Francisco logged roughly 2,330 dead animal pickups from January through October 2025. For context, the city also recorded 2,470 injury crashes in the same period, heavily concentrated on the High-Injury Network that slices straight through the Mission.
The GIS data doesn’t lie: most dead animal collection points fall within feet of mapped street centerlines, meaning they were struck on the road. And since many of these animals turn up at the city’s most notoriously dangerous intersections, it’s pretty clear what’s happening here. Dangerous street design and reckless human drivers are killing our pets, not self-driving cars.
So before we ban the robots, maybe we should fix the roads.
🏠 Property Crime Takes Another Hit: San Francisco’s Streets Get Safer (Yes, Really)
Here’s something you don’t hear every day (unless you read TransparentSF in September): San Francisco just logged another solid win against property crime. October saw incidents fall 6% from September—that’s 194 fewer cases, dropping the citywide total from 3,108 to 2,914. And before you ask, no, this isn’t a fluke. Property crime is now down a whopping 25% compared to this time last year.
The real star of the show? Bernal Heights, which recorded just 42 incidents—a stunning 58% decrease from its 24-month average of 102. Not to be outdone, District 9, which includes the Mission neighborhood, saw property crimes fall 45% compared to its historical average. October, apparently, was not the month to mess with the Mission.
So what’s driving this downward spiral of crime? The most dramatic improvement came in vehicle-related thefts, with “Theft From Vehicle” incidents plummeting 50% compared to the 24-month average. Only 73 vehicle break-ins were reported in October, down from 88 in September, representing a significant deviation from historical patterns. This aligns with Governor Newsom and Mayor Lurie’s recent announcement highlighting the success of state-local law enforcement partnerships that have led to significant arrests and recovery of stolen vehicles.
Now, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Districts 7, 11, and 4 saw modest upticks, but let’s be real—they barely made a dent in the overall trend.
October’s total sits a staggering 29% below the 24-month average, suggesting this isn’t some seasonal anomaly or statistical hiccup. Districts 3, 5, and 10 each chipped in with 20-60 fewer incidents, proving the decline isn’t just concentrated in one neighborhood—it’s spreading like good news actually can.
Sure, shoplifting ticked up by 21 incidents, and arson saw a small bump of 8 cases, but those are rounding errors compared to the massive drops elsewhere. The real story here? Auto break-ins and vehicle thefts—the crimes that have plagued this city for years—continue their retreat.
Finally, some trends worth celebrating.
🏚️ Homeless Concerns: A Temporary Improvement
San Francisco residents dialed back their homeless-related 311 complaints in October, with reports dropping 12.1% from September’s 5,646 to 4,964, that’s 682 fewer calls about encampments, individuals needing services, and the general chaos that’s become background noise in certain neighborhoods. It’s one of the year’s biggest month-over-month improvements, which would be great news if the year-over-year numbers weren’t still screaming in the opposite direction.
The drop showed up everywhere people complain: web submissions fell 22.9% (from 1,475 to 1,137), phone reports declined 14.3% (from 525 to 450), and—here’s the big one—reports tagged as ‘homelessness_and_supportive_housing’ (translation: people who clearly need help) plummeted 20.7%, from 2,569 to 2,037.
Geographically, the map was green almost everywhere, with the steepest pullbacks right where you’d want them. District 6 (SoMa/Tenderloin) logged 156 fewer cases, an 8.7% drop from 1,795 to 1,639. District 9 (Mission/Bernal Heights) went harder on rate, down 20.2% from 717 to 572. Zoom in further and the Mission led the board, posting 184 fewer cases, a 19.6% decline from 939 to 755.
Daily volume cooled, too. Average reports slipped from 188.2 in September to 160.1 in October, a move that tracks with typical fall seasonality. But let’s not pretend we’ve solved the problem of the concentration of homeless concerns. SoMa, the Mission, and the Tenderloin still carry nearly half (47.1%) of the city’s homeless issues.
Pull back to the year and the data is in the red. Through October 2025, the tally sits at 49,029 cases, 24.8% above the 39,378 logged over the same period in 2024. One tell for what’s working: individual homelessness reports fell more than encampment reports, which were down 5.7%. Translation: recent efforts are landing better with individuals than with dismantling entrenched camps.
In Summary
October was a mess of mixed signals that somehow added up to one of the best public safety months in recent memory. Property crime dropped 6% month-over-month and 25% year-over-year, while SFPD demonstrated what “enforcement” means, logging a 19.2% spike in drug incidents. Homelessness reports cooled off 12% for the month, though we’re still running 25% hotter than last year.
The pattern is clear: we’re getting results where we’re putting pressure. The Mission and Tenderloin got the full-court press. Property crime hit historic lows in District 9 while drug busts climbed to 134% above average. Vehicle break-ins are in retreat, individual homelessness outreach is working, and multi-agency crackdowns are pulling pounds of narcotics off the streets. What’s not working? Encampment sweeps, and we’re still playing whack-a-mole with the same few neighborhoods.
Heading into the holidays: lock in these property crime gains, make the drug enforcement surge sustainable, and figure out why the encampment playbook keeps failing. Progress isn’t perfect, but it’s progress. And in San Francisco, that counts for something.
By TransparentSF, a Human & AI collaboration
Latest data available on the dashboard.