Have you read your own article?

Numbers are spiking for 2020.

I wonder why? A global pandemic, mass unemployment, lockdowns, political tensions.

It’s surprisingly hard to find good charts on this topic, but I stumbled across this thread today:

https://twitter.com/Crimealytics/status/1343955297073770496?

These charts very clearly show an uptick in the nationwide homicide rate starting in 2014. It then levels off. And then there’s a big jump again this year.

This is entirely consistent with my claim that rates are way up nationwide and that they started going up before 2020.

St. Louis is an interesting case because while their homicide rate (not overall violent crime, which is still way down, like every other city) approaches record highs, their homicide clearance rate has never been worse. The St. Louis cops are just historically bad at their job, which might not generalize to a trend.