Simple assault cases in Chattanooga rose 14% this year, back to their 2021-2023 level, while other crime stayed down
Chattanooga police recorded 1,580 simple assault cases from April through September 2026, up from 1,381 in the same months of 2025 (+14.4%) and 1,331 in 2024 (+18.7%).
Chattanooga police recorded 1,580 simple assault cases from April through September 2026, up from 1,381 in the same months of 2025 (+14.4%) and 1,331 in 2024 (+18.7%). That puts the count back at the level of 2021 (1,565), 2022 (1,547) and 2023 (1,568), and narrowly above all of them; from 2017 through 2023 the window ran between 1,420 and 1,568. Each case number is counted once, and cases marked Unfounded are excluded.
Other crime did not come back the same way. Cases with no assault offense at all (not counting field-interview-only cases) were 7,796 in April-September 2025 and 7,789 in 2026, essentially unchanged, and remain 21% below 2019 (9,887). Aggravated assaults were flat at 562 and 568. As a result, simple assault rose from 12.1% of non-field-interview cases in 2019 and 14.1% in 2025 to 15.9% in 2026.
Most of the rise is in cases where simple assault is the only offense listed (1,110 to 1,294, +16.6%). Five of six police zones were higher than in 2025: Adam South 282 to 378, Charlie North 237 to 280, Charlie South 202 to 235, Adam North 153 to 181 and Baker North 260 to 272; Baker South went from 247 to 234. The cases came from 971 block addresses, up from 870, and the ten busiest addresses held 145 cases, up from 118, so the increase is spread widely rather than driven by a few locations.
The jump was largest in April (227 to 273) and May (210 to 292). From June through September the increase was smaller (944 to 1,015, +7.5%), and June itself was lower than last year. The first 23 days of October 2026 recorded 164 cases against 188 in 2025, although the latest weeks may still be filling in.
The share of simple assault cases cleared by arrest was 35.7% in April-September 2026 (564 of 1,580), close to 2025 (37.8%) and below 2019 (48.2%). The dataset gives no reason for the rise and cannot separate more assaults from more reporting or from changes in how incidents are classified. The comparison uses April through September because the published file has far fewer records for February and March 2026 than for the months around them.