Stephanie Mardis will become Durham’s 32nd police chief on Sept. 8. She spent more than 24 years with the Greensboro Police Department. Stephanie Mardis takes over Sept. 8 with shootings up, violent crime higher and roughly one-quarter of sworn positions unfilled. This establishes the immediate development without treating a preliminary figure or attributed claim as final.
WRAL reported 121 people shot and 15 killed in Durham so far in 2026. Violent crime increased 4.6% in the first quarter from the same period in 2025. Property crime declined 6.1% in the same comparison. For Durham’s Incoming Police Chief Prioritizes Violence, Staffing and Trust, those details define what changed by the edition deadline and which people or institutions are directly involved.
The department had filled 405 of 531 sworn positions at the end of 2025. Mardis identified violence reduction, trust and staffing as priorities. She also said accountability would apply to leadership, officers and the community. Crime percentages depend on category definitions and the time periods compared. The sequence separates documented events and published records from claims whose underlying evidence remains incomplete.
Vacancy totals describe authorized positions, not necessarily minimum safe staffing. Community-response programs and traditional enforcement can operate together. Leadership statements become testable when paired with timelines, budgets and public metrics. That distinction matters because a current report can accurately state what an institution said while still withholding judgment on whether the broader claim was proved.
Mardis had not yet taken office, and detailed implementation plans were still pending. This article therefore treats the record as a timestamped assessment and does not convert an unresolved legal, scientific, operational or political question into a settled outcome.
The next evidence to compare for Durham’s Incoming Police Chief Prioritizes Violence, Staffing and Trust is her first staffing and violence-reduction plan, followed by public reporting on shootings, vacancies and community response. Those records will show which details hold, which totals or interpretations change and whether announced actions become operational. The source links below preserve the reporting used for this account.