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Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
A Hoover police officer parks outside of a Hoover High School basketball game.
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Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
A Hoover police officer shows the patch on his uniform.
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Crime continues to drop in Hoover, reaching 18-year lows for burglaries, car break-ins and vehicle thefts in 2024, Hoover police Chief Nick Derzis said.
And non-traffic homicides and robberies were just slightly above the lows for that time frame—extremely low for a city of almost 100,000 people, Derzis said.
Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
A Hoover police officer shows the patch on his uniform.
There were only 70 burglaries in Hoover in 2024, compared to a high of 454 in 2009 and an 18-year average of 280. There were only 61 vehicle thefts, compared to a high of 136 in 2007 and an average of 96 over 18 years, the chief said. There were 201 auto break-ins, compared to a high of 530 in 2013 and an average of more than 400 over the past 18 years.
Hoover had 11 robberies reported in 2024, up slightly from nine in 2023, but that’s still extremely low for the city’s population, Derzis said. In 2007, Hoover had 77 robberies, statistics show.
There was only one non-traffic homicide in Hoover in 2024, the first non-traffic homicide in the city in 26 months, Derzis said.
Total “Group A” offenses reported to the FBI were down 10%, from 4,002 offenses in 2023 to 3,612 in 2024, police said. Arrests were up 2%, from 3,036 to 3,083.
Most crime categories saw decreases from 2023 to 2024, including a 30% drop in burglaries, a 39% drop in vehicle thefts, a 24% drop in embezzlement and a 20% drop in vandalism.
The only crime categories with increases were domestic violence assaults (up 10% from 538 to 590), robberies (up 22% from nine to 11), pornography/obscene materials (up 67% from three to five cases), stolen property offenses (up 30% from 30 to 39) and extortion/blackmail (up 20% from five to six cases).
Derzis credited his police force with solid work in bringing down crime. “Our team works very, very hard every day,” he said.
He also thanked city leadership for providing the Police Department with tools to do their jobs and the public for partnering with police to help deter crimes and solve them when they happen.
“We have to depend on the community — when they see something, certainly to say something,” the chief said.
Recently, Ross Bridge residents saw people going through the neighborhood, checking door handles on vehicles. A call was made to police, and three people were arrested almost immediately, Derzis said.
New technology such as doorbell cameras and drones is also helping. The city now has 15 drones.
Hoover police last year gained the ability to use a drone as a first responder within a 3-mile radius of Hoover City Hall — sometimes getting to the scene faster than a patrol officer could — and it has proven helpful, Derzis said. On one recent call, the drone arrived at a scene where people had started fighting, and they stopped when they saw it, he said. In another case, a drone helped officers quickly find a nonverbal child who had run away from home and hidden in the woods, Capt. Keith Czeskleba said.
New tools are helpful, but there’s no substitute for having good people doing their jobs well, Derzis said. “The bottom line is we know that having boots on the ground, having additional police officers seen, certainly has an effect on crime,” he said. “Unfortunately, the technology doesn’t put handcuffs on the bad guys. … We’ve got to have people.”
While the city’s population has risen 31% from about 70,727 in 2007 to 92,448 in 2023, the number of police calls has risen 161% from 49,247 in 2008 to 128,532 in 2024, Derzis said.
Another important factor in the crime drop is Hoover’s success at closing cases and making arrests, Derzis said.
“Regardless if it’s a large crime or a small crime, it doesn’t matter. We take it personally,” the chief said. “If we got a case, we’re putting you in jail for it.”
Of the 11 robberies reported last year, Hoover police cleared 10 of those cases, Czeskleba said. That means either an arrest or clearance due to some other exception, such as a victim in a drug-related incident being unwilling to cooperate, he said. In one of Hoover’s robberies, the person charged was killed in another incident in Birmingham, he said.
Clearance rates for burglaries and car break-ins in Hoover also are well above national averages, Czeskleba said.
Hoover has developed a reputation for solving cases, Derzis said. “I think the public understands that, and I think the bad guys understand that.”
Czeskleba said police do their best to prevent crime, but it’s not a perfect world, and crime is going to happen. “When it does happen, our officers and detectives work incredibly hard to hold those responsible accountable for it,” he said.
One area in which police are still seeking the public’s help is securing firearms and locking doors. The number of firearms stolen in Hoover has been cut in half since a “lock it or lose it” campaign started in 2022, but it’s still happening, Derzis said.
“We lose guns every week in the city,” he said. “We don’t usually lose car phones because people will not put a car phone in their car and leave the door unlocked. They’ll leave the car unlocked and leave the handgun inside the glove compartment.”
