RALEIGH — Cities like Charlotte have garnered national attention for a string of homicides in the past six months, including high-profile murders committed on the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS).
In August, Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska was stabbed and killed on a CATS light rail train. Decarlos Brown Jr. has been charged both federally and at the state level with her murder.
In early December, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant named Oscar Solarzano was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes stemming from a stabbing incident on the same train line as Zarutska’s death.
The North Carolina General Assembly’s House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform is looking into the crime and public safety issues in Charlotte and has issued formal letters requesting information to Charlotte leaders and Mecklenburg County officials.
Other major cities also have issues with crime.
North State Journal’s Dan Reeves experienced it at his Greensboro home, with an attempted break-in last fall.
According to Reeves, his home’s alarm system was triggered at around 3:45 a.m., and while on the phone with the alarm company and then the police, his wife noticed the side door to their garage was open and then closed.
Reeves said his 6-year-old daughter had woken up and told both her parents and the police that a man with brown skin and wearing blue had walked quickly down the driveway.
“My daughter was brave, but she still asks about the bad man coming back,” Reeves said.
Greensboro Police officers searched the garage, and nothing was stolen.
“When I told everyone in my cul-de-sac what had happened, my neighbor across the street told me a pistol was stolen from her husband’s car,” said Reeves. “In Greensboro, there’s an attitude of complacency about crime, such as, ‘Oh, he was probably just jiggling doorknobs to see if they’re unlocked.’
“While it might be true that no sophisticated crime syndicate was attempting to heist our possessions, the fact remains: A criminal tried to break into where my wife and children sleep and because the porch door was locked, he went for the garage,” Reeves said, adding that, “Nothing came of it that I know of.”
North State Journal found the burglary data for Greensboro can differ depending on the source.
The Greensboro Police Department’s (GPD) historical crime data, which includes burglaries, does not include any years after 2019. North State Journal requested that data for 2020 through 2025 from GPD Public Information Coordinator Patrick DeSota. The burglary data covers both commercial and nonresidential burglaries.
2020 – 2,231
2021 – 1,788
2022 – 1,678
2023 – 1,649
2024 – 1,443
2025 – 1,198 (as of Nov. 19)
Total for 2020 to 2025 per GPD data: 9,987
State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) index data for offenses in Greensboro shows slightly different figures and does not yet have 2025 data included.
2020 – 2,254
2021 – 2,015
2022 – 1,684
2023 – 1,693
2024 – 1,497
Total for 2020 to 2024 per SBI data: 9,143
For burglaries specifically, the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer shows that from December 2020 to December 2025, GPD logged 7,980 offenses. Of the total offenses, 4,933 (64%) were residential.
For comparison with other large cities for the same period, FBI data shows the Charlotte Metro Police Department had 20,569 burglaries, with 48% being residential, and the Raleigh Police Department had 6,858 burglaries, 64% of which were residential.
Statewide, there were 183,051 burglary offenses, with 112,707 (65%) of them occurring at a residence. Nationally, there were 3,772,791 offenses, and more than 1.875 million (58%) of the total count were residential.
