Chattanooga police recorded 983 trespass-of-real-property cases from April through September 2026, up 44.3% from 681 in the same months of 2025 and 691 in 2024. Each case number is counted once. Each of the six months was higher than the same month a year earlier, and the five busiest months for trespass in the dataset (2015 to 2026) all fall in that window: August 2026 (197), May (164), September (162), July (162) and June (156).

The increase is specific to trespass. Over the same April-September window, all other Part 2 offenses went from 1,855 cases to 1,829 (-1.4%) and Part 1 crimes from 9,014 to 8,691 (-3.6%).

It is spread across the city, not concentrated at a few places. All six police zones rose, most in Charlie North (158 to 288) and Adam South (185 to 276). Trespass was reported at 476 distinct block addresses, up from 392. The ten most-reported block addresses of 2026 account for 176 cases, among them the 2000-2200 blocks of Gunbarrel Road (19 to 46) and 7700 Lee Highway (19 to 36). With those ten removed, the rest of the city still rose 31.9%, from 612 to 807.

The rise began in late 2025: September through December 2025 had 540 cases, against 362 in the same months of 2024 and 409 in 2023.

This is the second step up. Trespass ran 597 to 690 cases a year from 2018 through 2021 and 1,177 to 1,390 a year from 2022 through 2025.

So far fewer of these cases have closed with an arrest: 287 of 983 (29.2%) are cleared by arrest, against 238 of 681 (34.9%) for April-September 2025, with the rest pending. Newer cases have had less time to close, so that gap may narrow.

The dataset records incidents reported to or by police, so it cannot separate more trespassing from more enforcement or more calls to report it. Field interviews by officers also rose over the same months, from 1,681 to 2,134. The data does not say why trespass cases rose. 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.