Homicide spike extends beyond Minneapolis-St. Paul

The crime spike in Minneapolis and St. Paul has been well documented, but homicides in the rest of Minnesota have also jumped dramatically.

Driving the news: The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released its annual crime statistics for 2020, reporting an all-time record of 185 homicides.

• Homicides reported by Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments increased from 69 in 2019 to 114 in 2020, a rise of 65%.
• But homicides in the rest of the state — removing Minneapolis and St. Paul's totals — also increased, from 48 in 2019 to 71 in 2020. That's a jump of 48%.

Some of the suburbs and towns with the biggest homicide increases between 2019 and 2020 include:

• Maple Grove: From two to seven
• Apple Valley: From zero to three
• Austin: From zero to four
• Rochester: From one to five

Between the lines: The trend is also a national one, according to FBI data.

• Towns with 10,000 residents or fewer saw a 30% increase in homicides over the first nine months of 2020, according to the Washington Post.

What they're saying: Chiefs of police from the suburbs of Maple Grove, Brooklyn Park, Crystal, New Hope and Plymouth told Fox9 that crime is surging in their communities and blamed it on a spread of "lawlessness" from Minneapolis.

• Nationally, experts have pointed to a number of factors, including pandemic-induced economic strife, early release of criminal defendants due to COVID-19 and a rollback of traditional policing in some areas, per CNN.

Of note: Overall violent crime in Minnesota rose 16.6% in 2020, which is more than the 3% increase nationwide, according to preliminary FBI numbers for the U.S.

• Nationally, murders were up 25% in 2020, according to that preliminary data. In Minnesota, they were up 58% overall, per BCA numbers.