![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786656263_481_.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nA WVIA NEWS SPECIAL REPORT<\/p>\n
For months, Republicans have portrayed Scranton as a hotbed of out-of-control crime and blamed Democratic congressional candidate and city Mayor Paige Cognetti for it.<\/p>\n
Combined, U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan\u2019s campaign and a national group that helps Republican congressional candidates have sent almost 30 emails since September accusing Cognetti of presiding over a crime wave.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, Mayor Cognetti has minimized rising violence, limited the ability of police to enforce the law, and ignored clear warnings about gang activity and increased homicide rates,\u201d Bresnahan campaign manager Peter Brath said in a Dec. 10 news release.<\/p>\n
Cognetti,<\/a> challenging Bresnahan<\/a> for the 8th Congressional District seat, sharply pushes back. She points to the city adding five more police officers in the midst of a spike in homicides and gang violence in 2024, spending more than $5 million to upgrade police equipment and training<\/a>, and plans for a new police command center next to City Hall.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a mayor and a mom. I became mayor just two weeks after having my first daughter,\u201d she said in a recent interview. \u201cSo, my life in the last six and a half years has been 24 hours a day thinking about public safety as mayor and as somebody who’s raising a family here in Scranton.\u201d<\/p>\n She also pointed to crime statistics.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stats show that violent crime is trending down in Scranton. Those are the facts, and we will keep doing our job of investing,\u201d Cognetti said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stats show that violent crime is trending down in Scranton. Those are the facts, and we will keep doing our job of investing,\u201d Cognetti said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n Caitlin Mackiewicz<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n WVIA News <\/p>\n What crime statistics show<\/p>\n For purposes of this analysis, serious crimes include homicide\/murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, rape, robbery, burglary, thefts from either a vehicle or otherwise, arson and human trafficking as defined by the state uniform crime reporting system<\/a>. The system includes non-negligent manslaughter under murder and negligent manslaughter separately. Scranton has not reported any negligent manslaughter. The FBI considers murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny\/theft and motor vehicle theft and human trafficking “the nation’s premier indicator of the nature of crime in the United States.”<\/a> <\/p>\n The WVIA News analysis includes simple assaults as serious crimes because the state crime reports do and because Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll included them in data he provided.<\/p>\n Based on this definition, publicly posted FBI <\/a>and state<\/a> crime statistics show serious crime in Scranton down 4.1% since the beginning of 2021, Cognetti\u2019s second year in office, through 2025, the last year with complete statistics available.<\/p>\n Carroll defends Cognetti\u2019s attention to crime and says the 2021-2025 period represents the most reliable indicator of where crime stands because of potential reporting errors in 2019 and 2020, the year she took office.<\/p>\n If either 2019 or 2020 is used as the basis for comparison, the results differ.<\/p>\n If the comparison years are 2019 and 2025, the most recent year with complete data, the publicly posted statistics show serious crime dropped 39.1%. Borys Krawczeniuk<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n WVIA News<\/p>\n Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll speaks about crime trends in the city during an interview in his police headquarters office on July 10, 2026.<\/p>\n Warning words<\/p>\n But Carroll cautioned against comparisons that include 2019 or 2020 because of changes in crime-reporting methodology and the city transitioning to a new federal crime reporting system for 2021.<\/p>\n In 2019, the city sometimes double-reported crimes \u2014 reporting from a former crime-reporting system and a new system, Carroll said. The FBI even flagged that, he said.<\/p>\n In 2020, the crime-reporting methodology began to change to match a new federal system. So, in 2021, reported rapes shot up to 107 from 15 in 2020, and aggravated assaults dropped to 169 from 652 in 2020. Simple assaults rose to 648 from 101.<\/p>\n Before 2021, many rapes were previously categorized as aggravated assaults, the chief said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not true discrepancies, but rather they reflect a change in the reporting methodology,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n Because the annual crime reports were so widely distributed by the time that was discovered, the city opted against revising the figures, he said. They remain publicly available online.<\/p>\n The chief said the 2021 and later statistics are the most reliable basis for comparison because the city had fully converted to the new crime-reporting system by then.<\/p>\n Using only 2021 to 2025 for year-by-year comparisons, violent crime rose 15.5% from 2021 to 2022, dropped 14.6% in 2023, rose 1.5% in 2024 and dropped 4.2% in 2025, leading to the overall 4.1% drop from 2021 to 2025.<\/p>\n Crime in the campaign<\/p>\n Crime has emerged as a major issue in the campaign for the 8th Congressional District seat between Bresnahan and Cognetti. That\u2019s mainly because the National Republican Campaign Committee, which helps the party\u2019s congressional candidates, and the Bresnahan campaign try to portray Cognetti as indifferent to rising crime. Among the crimes they highlight:<\/p>\n A Dec. 9, 2025, machete attack in a downtown apartment building. A man who lived in a neighboring apartment is accused of slashing two women and a service dog to death and seriously wounding another. The NRCC dubbed the mayor “Machete Cognetti” to highlight Scranton crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cThis tragic double homicide is not an isolated incident, but rather a pattern of conduct by Mayor Cognetti where public safety has not been prioritized,\u201d Brath said in a news release the day after the machete attack. <\/p>\n Portraying her as “Paige Cripnetti” because she posed for a picture posted on Facebook with two men who operated a hookah lounge in North Scranton and were later arrested by Scranton police as part of a ring tied to the notorious gang, the Crips.<\/p>\n \u201cGot Gangs?\u201d billboards bought by Bresnahan\u2019s campaign ask, referring to the arrests and the photo, first publicized by Breitbart, a conservative online publication.<\/p>\n \u201cCharges like that (Machete Cognetti & Paige Cripnetti) are just absurd,” Cognetti said. “They are coming from a person who has made dishonesty his calling card. It’s been astonishing to me that Rob’s name is on those himself, that he wants to associate with those types of slanders.\u201d<\/p>\n Cognetti said she had no idea who the men were when she posed for the picture.<\/p>\n \u201cI am the mayor of a city of 80,000 people. I go to events every single day. I get asked to take pictures with thousands of people, and as mayor, my job is to participate in the community,\u201d she said. \u201cAny mayor is going to take pictures with folks, and the Bresnahan campaign seems pretty desperate in making (it) a cornerstone of some of their spending.\u201d<\/p>\n Cognetti pointed out the police department she oversees arrested the two men and the machete attacker.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very clear what my record on crime and public safety is. I have a very long record of that at this point,\u201d she said. \u201cWe see the Scranton Police Department solving crimes. They have the tools to do that. We cannot prevent every crime, but Scranton PD immediately responds, solves these crimes so quickly, and we’ve also been putting in the work over these years to bolster the partnerships that help prevent crime and to help us solve those crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n The Villa appointment<\/p>\n The Bresnahan campaign and the NRCC also fault Cognetti for appointing Michael Villa to the city Human Relations Commission in November 2022, even though he was charged with drunken driving in Wilkes-Barre four months earlier. The Bresnahan campaign called Villa \u201ca known criminal\u201d at the time of the appointment, though he had not been convicted at that point.<\/p>\n A month after his appointment, Villa was arrested for trespassing, fleeing police and other counts. A month after that, city police arrested him again for disorderly conduct at a downtown hotel. Four months after that, he tried to enter West Scranton High School, which caused the district to briefly lock down the school.<\/p>\n City police sought to commit him to a hospital for mental health reasons, and he was charged with assault after throwing a phone that hit a hospital security guard.<\/p>\n “Paige Cognetti put Scranton at risk by knowingly appointing a dangerous criminal to city government and then refused to answer for her decision,\u201d NRCC spokesperson Reilly Richardson wrote in an Oct. 8 email.<\/p>\n Cognetti pointed out Villa worked as a grants manager for the Scranton Area Foundation and served on a city commission with only advisory power. But she acknowledged the city did not run a criminal background check that might have caught the drunken-driving charge.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always checked for any tax issues, any outstanding taxes,\u201d she said. \u201cWe did not do a criminal check on those appointments, and we do now.\u201d<\/p>\n She attributed Villa\u2019s behavior to \u201can unfortunate mental health episode.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUpon that happening, we immediately made sure that we replaced him on the commission,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Scranton Police Department patrol cars are seen in this 2025 file photo.<\/p>\n Republicans interpret data<\/p>\n Most of the emails from the NRCC or Bresnahan\u2019s campaign attacking Cognetti\u2019s record on crime did not cite crime statistics.<\/p>\n Asked to back up the allegations with crime statistics, the NRCC’s Richardson referred questions to the Bresnahan campaign.<\/p>\n Campaign spokesperson Samantha Bullock focused on three of the nine categories of violent crime used in this analysis \u2014 homicides, rape and arson.<\/p>\n In 2019, the year before Cognetti took office, the campaign said, the city had no homicides, two in 2020, one in 2021 and 2022, three in 2023 and seven in 2024. WVIA confirmed the numbers in federal and state crime statistics and also found three homicides in 2025. <\/p>\n Between 2013 and 2018, the city had 11 homicides. From 2019 to 2024, the city had 14, which the campaign noted was a 27% increase. Both are six-year periods.<\/p>\n In 2019, the city reported 45 rapes, 15 in 2020, 107 in 2021, 116 in 2022, 69 in 2023 and 73 in 2024, the Bresnahan campaign said. As Carroll said, rapes were underreported before 2021, prior to the reporting classification change. WVIA News found similar numbers but more rapes \u2014 110 in 2021 and 118 in 2022.<\/p>\n The Bresnahan campaign says the numbers show rapes increased 62% between 2019 and 2024. WVIA confirmed the percentage, however, the percentage draws on numbers prior to the classification change.<\/p>\n In 2019, the city reported six cases of arson, 20 in 2020, 19 in 2021, 13 in 2022, 11 in 2023 and 13 in 2024. The numbers show arsons up by 116% between 2019 and 2024, the campaign said. WVIA confirmed the numbers.<\/p>\n The Bresnahan campaign said there was increased concern from local law enforcement \u201cover the spike in crime in Scranton while Cognetti has been mayor.\u201d The campaign cited the January 2024 shooting of city police Detective Kyle Gilmartin and former Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell\u2019s 2024 statement about \u201ca rise in gang activity in Scranton and beyond in the last several years.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, Cognetti campaign spokesperson Emma Mustion said the city’s “brave law enforcement officers” have put their lives on the line combatting gang activity for years.<\/p>\n “Any tragedy related to their courageous service should never be politicized,” Mustion said.<\/p>\n She said the department works daily with other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and officials “to combat and prevent gang violence.”<\/p>\n “Under Mayor Cognetti\u2019s leadership, in the wake of January 2024, the city took immediate and thorough action, including opening up the budget mid-year to add five additional officers to the police force complement,” she said. <\/p>\n Local, state, and federal partners gathered to immediately begin planning a community violence intervention program that “will provide resources to deter gang participation.”<\/p>\n The Cognetti campaign also pointed to the purchase of 51 new police vehicles since 2023 equipped with smart technology, WiFi, mounted laptops, and AI-driven systems to enhance officer safety and efficiency; 230 citywide cameras for better monitoring of hotspots and public events; and $4 million in police safety equipment including live feed body cameras and dash cams, and enhanced real-time surveillance technology connecting officers in the field and a command center.<\/p>\n After WVIA presented its findings and Carroll\u2019s explanation about the flawed data to the Bresnahan campaign, Bullock pointed out one category of violent crime \u2014 aggravated assault \u2014 stayed roughly the same from 2021 to 2025: 169 in 2021, 165 in 2022, 142 in 2023, 114 in 2024 and 139 in 2025.<\/p>\n Removing 2019 and 2020 because of the potential flaws, she said, the numbers of homicides, rapes and arsons from 2021-2025 are higher compared to 2014-2018.<\/p>\n WVIA News tallied 214 homicides, rapes and arsons from 2014-2018 and 527 from 2021-2025. As Carroll pointed out, in the earlier five years, many rapes were classified as aggravated assaults, lowering the earlier rape numbers.<\/p>\n Guns, ammo and no guns<\/p>\n Bullock also:<\/p>\n Said spending on police guns and ammunition dropped from 2020 to 2021 and more homicides followed for several years. A review of city budgets shows the budget for guns and ammunition dropped from $43,500 to $20,000 in 2021, but the 2021 budget also contained $23,629 for special operations ammunition in a separate line item that year. The overall city police budget went from $25.1 million in 2020 and $30.8 million in 2026.<\/p>\n Said Cognetti favored taking guns away from police. The Bresnahan campaign has cited a June 2020 Cognetti town hall.<\/p>\n \u201cI would love to get to a world where, a country where we don’t have, where police don’t have firearms, and where we don’t have firearms (and) that citizens aren’t carrying them either,\u201d Cognetti said then. \u201cI lived in Japan for a couple years. There are no guns there, and it’s lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n “Paige Cognetti fantasized about disarming the police, slashed their ammunition and guns budget by half in 2021, and then gang activity surged and violent crimes continued,\u201d Bullock said. \u201cEven taking into account the methodology mix-up Cognetti\u2019s administration is pushing, aggravated assaults are still just as high as they were before Cognetti took office while reported rapes have skyrocketed, reported cases of arson are consistently in the double digits, and homicides rattle the city, all showing no signs of slowing down under her failed, weak leadership.”<\/p>\n Cognetti, who said she comes from a family of gun owners, said she \u201cabsolutely\u201d does not want to take away guns from police.<\/p>\n \u201cI lived in Japan for two years. I taught English there, and they don’t have the issues of gun violence to the degree that we do in America,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we can work on a bipartisan basis on common-sense gun laws to balance responsible gun ownership, give law enforcement what they need to take illegal guns off the streets, I think that we can get to a better place where, as a mom, I am not worried every single day about gun violence at my kid’s school.\u201d<\/p>\n Carroll: Cognetti backs police<\/p>\n Carroll agreed 2024 was a tough year because of the seven homicides and the Gilmartin shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a very difficult year to work through,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cThere was a lot stacked against us, and I think that speaks of our resiliency of the agency and then the officers that work on the streets and do the investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n Cognetti pointed out two of the seven homicides in 2024 were by motor vehicle. Normally, the city has one, two or three homicides, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAgain, we can never prevent all of these incidents from happening, but we have solved those homicides,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’ve also been putting in the work over these years to bolster the partnerships that help prevent crime and to help us solve those crimes.<\/p>\n Carroll said the city is in \u201ca good spot\u201d when it comes to crime.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve had our ups and downs since,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a spike in violent crime when our homicides climbed. That\u2019s uncharacteristic of the area. So, with data \u2014 and this is the reason why I wanted to sit down with you \u2014 data by itself, without context, without discussion, can be twisted any way. Even after this discussion, somebody else can say ‘he’s a liar because look at it from this perspective.’\u201d<\/p>\n As crime trends emerge, city police address them, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I have had full support from this administration at every turn,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cI am the one who runs the police department, not the politicians. I advise. I’m an advisor. And the final decision-making obviously occurs with the chief executive of the city, which is the mayor. But I have not- we have not had to want (for resources to fight crime).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A WVIA NEWS SPECIAL REPORT For months, Republicans have portrayed Scranton as a hotbed of out-of-control crime and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-264830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786656264_867_.png\"\/)
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If the comparison years are 2020 and 2025, the publicly posted statistics show serious crime up 11.2%. That\u2019s due at least partly to record low serious crime numbers in 2020, the year of COVID-19, when crime dropped in many places. The 1,771 recorded serious crimes in Scranton in 2020 were the fewest between 2013 and 2025.
Comparing Cognetti\u2019s first six years in office (2020-2025) and the six years before that (2014-2019), serious crimes dropped 36.6%.<\/p>\n![\"Scranton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786656265_486_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Scranton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786656267_756_.jpeg\"\/)
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