In his first appearance as head of the Fayetteville Police Department, Chief Roberto Bryan presented the City Council with the Police Department’s second quarter statistics recently, indicating a 13% decrease in overall crime.
Bryan noted that the presentation Aug. 25 was taking place on his 49th day in office. He said that among his first actions as police chief, he “dedicated my time to listening, learning and understanding the unique strengths and challenges of our city.
“I met without officers, professional staff, connected with leaders from city departments, engaged with the community members and organizations and started strengthening relationships with our local, state and federal partners. These conversations have reinforced my belief that collaboration, transparency and accountability will be the foundation of our success for enhancing public safety for the city of Fayetteville.”
Homicides
While Bryan’s presentation noted that the homicide rate in the second quarter of 2025 was twice that of 2024, he pointed out that all of the victims were targeted.
“These homicides are not random citizens in the streets. These are also individuals that are known to each other and they’ve had conflict,” Bryan said. “These aren’t what we would call just a random situation where any citizen is just being victimized by an individual.”
At the close of the second quarter, which ended June 30, there were 25 homicide cases with 27 victims, compared to 2024 in which there were 12 cases with 13 victims.
Of the 27 cases this year, 30% — or eight — were domestic violence, Bryan said.
He said the homicide division’s clearance rate in the cases was at 92%, compared to the national average of 58%.
Other data on homicides through June 30 gathered from Bryan’s presentations and Police Department news releases:
• 17 involved the use of a gun.
• 12 victims were female.
• Six victims were juveniles.
He told council members there was a 16.73% decrease in crimes against persons — things like homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery — and property crimes were down 17.75%. The presentation showed felony arrests were up by 2%.
Fayetteville Police Chief Roberto Bryan presented the Fayetteville City Council with statistics from the Police Department’s second quarter.
Federal partnerships
Bryan highlighted partnerships with federal agencies, including the U.S. Marshal Service, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Postal Inspection, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Violent Crime Action Plan under Project Safe Neighborhood.
“One of the things that is very critical, and I want to make sure that we’re all aware in terms of the purpose of this, is because we have offenders that come in and out of our state system. In and out, OK,” Bryan said. “With our federal partners, we’re able to get these offenders that are continuously plaguing our community with violence and actually be able to put them away for some significant time and with our partnership, that’s what we’ll be doing.”
He noted the following data as part of those partnerships:
• Seven people federally sentenced
• 40 individuals federally indicted
• $21,774 seized with criminal activity
• 59 firearms seized
Property crimes
“Our property crimes across the board were trending downward,” Bryan said. “This is due to the dedicated work from our property crime detectives and the information we’re also getting from our community, our technology and everything else to put these cases together to go ahead and make sure that we make a difference in the city.”
According to the presentation, in the second quarter of 2025:
• Burglaries were down 20.61%, from 1,014 cases in 2024 to 805 in 2025.
• Larcenies were down 16.49%, from 2,091 in 2024 to 1,746 in 2025.
• Motor vehicle thefts were down 6.26%, from 368 in 2024 to 344 in 2025.
• Robberies were down 12.38%, from 113 in 2024 to 99 in 2025.
Juvenile crimes
Bryan said the numbers he presented regarding juvenile crimes were before the city enacted a juvenile curfew that went into full effect in early July.
Of the 640 crime reports involving 591 juveniles, 933 charges were leveled. The department charged juvenile offenders with:
• 156 assaults.
• 85 break-ins, including car burglaries.
• 62 motor vehicle thefts.
• 40 shoplifting.
• 37 vandalism.
• 23 drugs.
• 22 robberies.
• 20 weapons.
• 15 stolen property.
• 12 resist, delay, obstructing.
“The B&E and the motor vehicle thefts, those are the areas that have been plaguing us in the city,” Bryan said. “But our district commanders have put plans in place in order to address some of these issues, and we are going to be trending downward as you’ll see in the future.”
School resource officers
Bryan said that for the 49 schools within the city, the Fayetteville Police Department currently had 14 resource officers, with a focus on the high schools and middle schools; and 59 part-time traffic control officers.
Since the Police Department assumed control of the 49 schools within the city limits in August 2024, Bryan said, officers responded to 1,844 calls for service and 424 incident reports in the 2024-2025 school year.
The Police Department took over the role in city schools after the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, citing staffing shortages, declined to renew its contract with the county to handle all schools in the district.
Bryan said four additional officers will be in place by January, and the Police Department is researching how much it will cost to install speed cameras in the city school zones. After being signed into law in June and beginning Oct. 1, N.C. cities and counties are authorized to enforce speed limits in school zones through the use of speed cameras, and the recordings are admissible in court.
Drug seizures
In the first two quarters of 2025, vice officers seized greater amounts of fentanyl, heroin (8.03 kilos) and marijuana (165 pounds) than in 2024, Bryan said.
“One thousand grams of fentanyl can kill 500,000 people,” Bryan said. “When you listen to those numbers, now you understand why it’s a priority on a federal level, but always a priority at the city level to make sure that we get after these individuals that are dealing fentanyl in our community.”
The data he presented showed that officers seized:
• 31.82 kilos of cocaine in 2024 compared to 15 kilos in 2025.
• 38.52 kilos of methamphetamine in 2024 compared to 17.46 kilos in 2025.
• 3.02 kilos of fentanyl and heroin in 2024 compared to 8.03 kilos in 2025.
• 48.52 pounds of marijuana in 2024 compared to 165 pounds in 2025.
• 541 weapons in 2024 compared to 487 in 2025.
Traffic stops
Bryan said that of the 16,248 traffic stops on Black motorists in the first two quarters of 2025, 583 vehicles were searched and in 348 searches, drugs were found, and weapons were found in 142.
Of the 8,936 white drivers stopped, 150 vehicles or 2% were searched, and drugs were recovered in 86 searches and weapons in 19, he said.
Among the 1,154 stops of people of “all other races,” Bryan said, 30 vehicle searches were conducted. In 23 searches, drugs were found, and in six, weapons were found.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville police chief says overall crime down in second quarter