William “Billy” Schmidt was walking home from a South Philadelphia bar in early June when two masked thieves confronted him. They punched him, pushed him to the ground, and rifled through his pockets before running away with his cellphone.
As Schmidt chased the assailants, one of them, wearing all black with camouflage over his face, turned around and shot him. Police rushed Schmidt to a nearby hospital. The 22-year-old Penn State senior died shortly after arriving.
[This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.]
Three and a half weeks later, Philadelphia authorities announced murder charges for two suspects in Schmidt’s killing, both 16 years old. Authorities arrested one of them in Colorado, where he had allegedly gone to hide out after the shooting. The teen accused of pulling the trigger turned himself in the following day.
The quick capture of the suspects is part of a broader trend in Philadelphia. Over the past 10 years, the share of homicides solved or otherwise cleared by police has nearly doubled, from 45 percent in 2016 to 82 percent last year, according to data obtained by The Trace. The clearance rate for nonfatal shootings climbed 15 percentage points, to more than 40 percent, over the same period.
Police and researchers attribute the increases to multiple factors. One is the dramatic drop in homicides over the past few years, which has freed detectives to devote more time to each case. Officials also credit the growing use of crime-solving technology and forensic science.
The clearance rate is calculated by comparing the number of cases police close in a given year with the number of crimes committed that year. Because police may close cases from previous years, the clearance rate can be greater than 100 percent. Not all cases are closed with an arrest: Police may clear a case if the suspected perpetrator dies or cannot be arrested for reasons outside the department’s control. Still, the clearance rate is a widely used barometer of how effectively police solve crimes.
“When your numbers are coming down, you have the ability to spend really good quality time on investigations,”
Philadelphia’s clearance rate is now greater than many other large cities. New York City, Chicago, Houston, and Baltimore had clearance rates between 65 and 79 percent last year. Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have fared better, with clearance rates of 85 percent and 101 percent, respectively.
The Trace also analyzed the share of homicides from each of the past 10 years that police have solved. Unlike the clearance rate, this measure counts only cases from the year in which the homicides occurred, excluding older cases that were solved later.
Of the 222 homicides committed last year, 157 — nearly 71 percent — have been solved, a higher share than for any other year in the past decade. Police have solved 263 — about 47 percent — of the 562 homicides committed in 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed violence to record levels.
On the night he was killed, Schmidt went to a bar just blocks from his lifelong home to watch the New York Knicks play the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. After leaving the bar and walking back onto his block, Schmidt was attacked.
Within a week of the slaying, police released surveillance video of the two prime suspects with detailed descriptions of what each was wearing. On June 11, several hundred people gathered at the place where Schmidt was shot to grieve with his family and friends and to call for justice.
“I think the Philly Police Department does a great job,” Frank Scales, a local conservative activist who went to high school with Schmidt, said during the vigil. “I think they’re going to get to the bottom of who murdered Billy Schmidt.”
Bill Schmidt, the victim’s father, said he is planning to sell his home and move away from the neighborhood where he raised his son. Within eyeshot of his front door is a shrine of candles, flowers, and balloons marking the spot where his son was attacked.
“I can’t be across the street,” the elder Schmidt said. “My son never hurt anybody or had any kind of a confrontation with anybody. He was just the nicest kid.”
A homicide detective regularly called Schmidt to update him on the case, he said. Schmidt is grateful the police made arrests. “I’m happy,” he said. “I know they’ve been on the case, and they’re doing a good job.”
Killings down, arrests up
Philadelphia has long been dubbed “Killadelphia” by some locals and visitors, a reference to its history of violence. But as the summer unfolds — the season when crime typically peaks — the nation’s sixth-largest city is seeing violence decline.
As of July 12 Philadelphia has had 93 homicides in 2026, down 23 percent from the same period last year and nearly 70 percent from 2021, when the city endured more than 280 killings over that time frame.
The decline has given detectives more time to work cases. “When your numbers are coming down, you have the ability to spend really good quality time on investigations,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. The department is also receiving more tips from the community and is making greater use of cameras and technology to access cellphones, read car license plates, and speed up the processing of DNA. “All of that ecosystem of activity has created this synergy that helps us,” Bethel added.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said another factor in the improved clearance rates is the Police Department’s Shooting Investigation Group, which launched in 2022 to direct more resources to solving nonfatal shootings. Krasner also cited his 2018 decision to merge his office’s Homicide and Nonfatal Shooting units. “Those are good ideas because you get all the people who specialize in a thing, and they’re sharing information,” Krasner said. “It’s very encouraging to me to see the most modern techniques being used.”
Dan Semenza, an associate professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University and director of research with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, agreed that the declining body count is helping drive up the clearance rate. “When clearance rates are higher and more cases are being solved, that’s communicating to families and the community that the work is getting done and the investigators are yielding some type of just outcomes,” he said. “It helps build trust.”
Cynthia Johnson said the resolution of her grandson’s murder strengthened her trust in police. In 2022, her grandson, Naasire Johnson, 20, was fatally shot and his body set on fire. Police arrested Naasire’s killer, Kylen Pratt, four months later, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
The share of homicides solved or otherwise cleared by police has nearly doubled, from 45 percent in 2016 to 82 percent last year.
“They did a good job, the D.A. and the homicide detectives,” Johnson said. “They said they were going to find out what happened, and they did.”
The investigation revealed that Naasire and Pratt were secretly dating, and Pratt did not want anyone to know about their relationship, police and prosecutors said. Naasire went missing after visiting Pratt’s North Philadelphia home. Three days later, two passersby found Naasire’s charred body on a trail in Fairmount Park.
Acting on an anonymous tip, detectives obtained a warrant to search Pratt’s cellphone and uncovered evidence that placed him with Naasire when the murder occurred. They also found deleted internet searches about the recovery of Naasire’s body, sex with dead people, and the traits of a psychopath. A search of Pratt’s home yielded Nassire’s blood on carpet padding and a hardwood floor, as well as a 9 mm gun with ammunition consistent with the bullet found in Naasire’s neck.
Johnson said she does not want Naasire to be forgotten, so she speaks about him whenever possible. This month, she was interviewed for a documentary series about his case that will air next year on the TV One cable channel. “Even though I got my justice, I feel like there should have been more coverage on the way that he was murdered,” she told The Trace. “I feel as though what he did to my grandson was so wrong. You already shot and killed him. What was the need to burn his body?”
Left Out in the Cold
Despite the improved clearance rate, many families are still waiting for answers about the killing of their loved ones. Among them is Rhonda Gore, whose son, Shelton Hayes, was killed in 2018, three days after his 39th birthday. He was fatally shot in the living room of the home he shared with his mother in the Overbrook Park neighborhood.
His death led Gore to seek counseling from the EMIR Healing Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit that helps people who’ve lost someone to violent crime. She now works as an administrator for EMIR, which stands for Every Murder Is Real. The position keeps her up to date on the city’s violence issue.
For Gore, the improved clearance rate provides little comfort. The same is true, she said, for the other survivors she works with whose loved ones’ murders also remain unsolved. “I call, and I leave emails asking if there’s been any developments. Eight years later, I’m told there’s absolutely nothing,” Gore said. “Who are they clearing? Who are they assisting?”
Schaine Isaac has had similar frustrations. In August 2021, Isaac’s only child, 18-year-old Khyrie Isaac, was sitting with his girlfriend, 19-year-old Ojanae Thompson, in a rented BMW outside a grocery store in Philadelphia’s Olney section. Another vehicle pulled up, and three men emerged and fired more than 20 rounds into the BMW, striking the couple multiple times, police said. Khyrie, a standout wide receiver on his high school football team, died that day. Thompson succumbed to her injuries two weeks later.
Isaac said he passed tips about the identities of the shooters to detectives, but he’s not heard of any progress. “They still haven’t found anything yet,” he said. “It’s still an open case. Whenever I call, it’s always nothing at all.”
“I would like some more information — some sympathy. Imagine if it was your kid,” Isaac added. “Can I let go of my son? No. He was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
MORE FROM THE TRACE
