Chattanooga police recorded 231 incidents classified as ‘Shots Fired with Nothing Located’ from April through September 2026. In the same months of 2021, the first full year the category was used, there were 445 (-48.1%). The count fell to 336 in 2022 and 334 in 2023, then to 261 in 2024 and 264 in 2025, so 2026 is the lowest of the six years for that window. Full years show the same path: 950 in 2021, 728 in 2022, 681 in 2023, 573 in 2024 and 533 in 2025 (-43.9% from 2021). Each case number is counted once, and none of these cases is marked Unfounded.

In 2021 no month recorded fewer than 51 of these reports. Since January 2024 no month has recorded more than 62.

The drop is much larger than the change in police cases overall. Over the same April-September window, all recorded cases went from 30,809 in 2021 to 28,376 in 2026 (-7.9%), so these reports fell from 1.44% of cases to 0.81%. Two related categories also fell over the same window: weapon law violations from 467 to 232 (-50.3%) and aggravated assaults from 897 to 568 (-36.7%).

The decline is citywide. All six police zones were lower in April-September 2026 than in 2021: Charlie South 116 to 51, Baker North 92 to 36, Baker South 71 to 35, Charlie North 70 to 39, Adam South 50 to 34 and Adam North 46 to 36. All nine council districts were lower too, though District 1 barely moved (22 to 20); the largest counts fell in District 9 (99 to 45), District 8 (77 to 42), District 7 (70 to 38) and District 5 (68 to 26). The reports came from 379 block addresses in 2021 and 211 in 2026, and the ten busiest addresses each year held 42 reports in 2021 and 22 in 2026.

The time of day has not shifted: in every year from 2021 to 2026, between 48% and 59% of these reports came between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Leaving out July 4 and 5 changes the totals by only a few cases (443 in 2021, 229 in 2026).

As the name says, these are reports of shots fired where nothing was located. The dataset cannot tell fewer shots apart from fewer calls to police, or from changes in how calls are classified, and it gives no reason for the decline. The comparison uses April through September because the published file has far fewer records for February and March 2026 than for the months around them.