Armour Square sexual assault is the lead signal this month — a sharp above-baseline move that stands as the most statistically pronounced single-neighborhood, single-category shift in the February 2026 briefing. Hegewisch vandalism held the top spot last month and remains in the top five, but the fresh signal this period is in a different category: sexual assault appears twice in the top five, with Lower West Side also registering a spike.
Citywide volume is down 9.5% against the prior 12 months — 129,863 incidents against 143,548 in the year before. That broader decline is the structural backdrop for a month with 15 spikes and 28 below-trend signals across 77 neighborhoods, alongside 82 sustained-shift signals. Gage Park other-larceny and Archer Heights other-larceny both appear in the top five, suggesting that category is running above trend in multiple parts of the city simultaneously.
The two sexual assault spikes — Armour Square and Lower West Side — are the signals most worth tracking into March. Both are single-month moves against a citywide backdrop that is otherwise declining; whether they reflect a localized shift or a one-month pattern is not determinable from a single briefing. The overall structure of the data, a falling annual total with a concentration of sustained-shift signals, has not changed.
Sustained drops worth naming
Homicide ran below trend in the trailing 12 months — 29% down from the year before. Sustained shifts often precede a baseline reset; we surface them at the same prominence as spikes.
Public Analyst.ai, “February 2026 — Chicago,” archived snapshot.Permanent URL: /chicago/2026/february