MISSOULA — The number of violent crimes reported in Missoula dropped in 2024, with the exception of sexual intercourse without consent, though that reporting category saw multiple victims report a single individual, according to the Missoula Police Department.
Police Chief Mike Colyer on Wednesday detailed his department's activity over the prior year, in which officers responded to roughly 55,000 incidents. That included 36 robberies, 357 assaults and two homicides.
“The calls for service are up a little, but our violent crime is down,” he said. “Robberies are down 2.7% and assault is down 3.5%. The one category that is up is sexual intercourse without consent. We had one case that accounted for many, many reported victims, and each reported victim indicates an incident report.”
Of all the incidents prompting a police response, traffic stops, suspicious activity and crashes led the way. This year's data also reported more than 450 DUIs, 700 incidents of vandalism and 1,500 incidents of disorderly conduct.
Colyer said officers responded to more than 2,860 traffic accidents, including 813 hit-and-run cases and 440 injury crashes. The city's most dangerous intersections included Reserve Street and Mullan Road, which saw 41 accidents, followed by Brooks Street and Reserve, which saw 27 accidents.
Colyer said Reserve Street accounts for the majority of accidents at “high risk” intersections.
“Eight of the top 10 crash locations in Missoula are on Reserve Street,” he said. “The last two years, seven out of 10 were on Reserve. The other thing that jumps out is the 16% increase in hit-and-run calls. But fatalities are down from seven to five last year.”
In the Detective Division, Colyer said the top five investigated case assignments regarding crimes against persons included felony assault, adult sex crimes, child sex crimes, partner assault and child abuse.
Regarding drugs, Colyer said meth and fentanyl continue to be the big seizures. With an increase in trafficking, the department now measures its drug seizures by weight.
“Combining our powder and pill seizures, we had around 39,000 dosage uses of fentanyl this year,” he said.
As the City of Missoula shifts to data to measure its needs and successes, Colyer said his department is dedicated to collecting and analyzing data. But that can be challenging when weighing a traffic warning against a murder investigation.
“I hope we can get better data to paint a picture of our workload,” he said. “I'm focusing on how we can use the people we have to do things a little bit smarter.”
