Chelsea Police 2025 Year-End Report Shows Overall Stability in 2025

The Chelsea Police Department released its 2025 Annual Report, a look back at crime, traffic enforcement, arrests, and service calls within the city. The data shows overall stability in serious crime, modest declines in several violent categories, and noticeable increases in fraud-related and retail theft offenses.

Violent Crime Remained Low

Chelsea continued to experience very low levels of violent crime in 2025.
There were no homicides, no kidnapping cases, and no deaths involving law enforcement.

Assault-related offenses declined overall, including:

• Non-aggravated assaults, down from 17 to 11 cases
• Aggravated assaults, down slightly from 8 to 7 cases
• Intimidation and stalking, down from 10 to 8 in 2025
• Sex-related crimes, four in 2025, three in 2024

Property Crime: Mixed Trends

Property crime totals were largely steady, but with notable shifts inside specific categories.

• Burglaries, four down from eight in 2024
• Motor vehicle theft dropped to one, down from five cases in 2024
• Theft from buildings increased, rising from 8 to 11 incidents
• Thefts from vehicles declined, continuing a downward trend

Damage-to-property complaints decreased slightly, reflecting fewer vandalism-related reports.

Fraud and Retail Theft Rose

The largest increases in 2025 were tied to financial and retail-related crimes.

• Fraud offenses rose sharply, particularly false pretense, swindling cases, and credit-card and ATM fraud
• Wire fraud declined, but overall fraud activity increased
• Retail theft more than doubled, with theft-based retail fraud rising from 6 to 16 cases

Police note these trends are consistent with broader statewide and national patterns tied to online scams and organized retail theft.

Traffic Enforcement and Crashes Increased

Police activity related to traffic rose modestly in 2025.

• Traffic offenses increased
• Traffic crashes rose from 236 to 253
• Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) cases declined
• Citations for license, registration, and equipment violations increased significantly

Chelsea officers issued over 400 traffic citations during the year, with most stops involving minor moving violations and registration issues.

Calls for Service

Calls for service also rose:

• Non-criminal complaints increased
• Animal complaints and alarms rose
• Overall, police activity increased by nearly 12%

Despite higher call volume, serious criminal incidents remained limited.