UM President Mun Choi continued to press for a joint task force yesterday to look into downtown Columbia crime.

Meanwhile, Columbia city leaders are evaluating its next steps to reduce crime in the city after a Stephens College student was killed in a shooting over the weekend that left two others injured.

Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe announced Saturday on Facebook the creation of a task force. She just didn’t release details of what that task force looks like.

Buffaloe has emphasized that despite the tragedy, crime trends overall have improved in recent months.

Monday night Buffaloe posted to Facebook that the number of shots-fired incidents in the city have been cut nearly in half during the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year.

And she is not wrong. According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol data, through the first nine months of the year, violent crime has trended downward since 2021 in CPD’s jurisdiction.

There have been 307 violent crimes reported so far this year, while 357 were reported through September in 2024, That number was 425 for the same period in 2023, 465 in 2022 and 492 reported in 2021.

But while violent crime is down, overall crime appears to be up compared to last year.