Chattanooga police recorded 245 motor vehicle theft cases from April through August 2026. The same months had 361 cases in 2025 and 577 in 2024, a drop of 57.5% over two years. Each case number is counted once. The comparison that is already a year old holds up on its own: April through August 2025 was 37.4% below 2024.

Full-year 2025 had 805 cases, down 34.2% from 1,224 in 2024. That is the lowest of the eleven complete years in the dataset (2015 to 2025). The peak was 1,856 in 2020.

All six police zones show the decline. From April-August 2024 to April-August 2026: Adam North fell from 93 to 34, Adam South from 127 to 50, Baker North from 47 to 36, Baker South from 82 to 29, Charlie North from 119 to 55 and Charlie South from 109 to 41.

The drop is specific to car theft, not a general fall in reported crime. Over the same April-August window, all other Part 1 crimes fell 10.0%, from 7,020 to 6,315 cases. Car thefts were also not moved into nearby categories. Thefts of vehicle parts, vehicles recovered stolen outside Chattanooga and ‘all other larceny’ all fell as well, and the four categories together are down 31.4%.

The dataset covers incidents reported to police, so it measures reported thefts. It does not say why the number fell. The comparison uses April through August because the published file has far fewer records for February and March 2026 than for the months around them.