With the candidates level-pegging in polls just ahead of voting stations opening, pot shots and opportunistic comments have spewed from this particular Senate race, from health cracks to puppy killings.

Of course, traditional big issues have maintained some priority; Dr. Oz in particular has highlighted crime, law and order throughout his campaign, including a recent op-ed in which he attacked Philadelphia’s record.

The Claim

In an article published October 27, 2022, with the headline “Crime Is Out of Control - Here Is My Plan to Fix It”, Mehmet Oz claimed that there have been more than 400 homicides in 2022 “thus far.”

The Facts

Dr. Oz has led a campaign driven, in part, by commitments to tackling crime in Pennsylvania and besmirching his opponent’s record while he was in office.

However, the stats he’s used here offer an incomplete and somewhat misleading picture about homicides in Philadelphia in 2022.

While Oz is correct in saying that there have been more than 400 homicides in Philadelphia this year, he fails to mention that the figure at the same time last year was higher.

The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) publishes weekly statistics showing incidents of crime recorded including homicide.

Up to week 45 2022, PPD data shows there had been 435 homicides in Philadelphia. However, the figure was 6% higher the same time in 2021, with 463 deaths recorded.

The number of homicides has been increasing almost every year since 2013, with a dramatic rise of more than 100 deaths between 2019 and 2020.

So, it appears that Oz’s claim that “Crime Is Out of Control” should probably come with the caveat that apparently efforts to curb the number of homicides between 2021 and 2022 have had an impact, albeit small.

It also marks the biggest decrease in the number of homicides since 2013. The only other time the figure has decreased since then was between 2015 and 2016, by about 1%.

So while the number of homicides in Philadelphia is and should be a cause for concern for Oz, Fetterman and the PPD, to suggest it is “out of control” misrepresents the current dynamic.

Elsewhere in the same article, Oz makes a claim that there had been more than 1,000 carjackings in a year. This is supported by data widely reported earlier this year and seemingly recognized last month by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

“There’s no question that a component of this all the way up and down the East Coast is cars getting jacked and sent overseas to locations where not only they are worth more than their used cars price in the United States, but some of these are countries where the average annual income is far less than the value of one car,” he said.

“Sometimes it’s a 20th the value of one car.”

Newsweek has contacted Dr. Oz for comment.

The Ruling

Needs Context.

The figures quoted by Dr. Oz, while accurate, do not mention that homicides have actually fallen compared to the same period last year.

As of November 7, 2022, Philadelphia has seen the largest year-on-year drop in the number of homicides since 2013. While the numbers are still high, particularly compared to figures from less than a decade ago, to suggest these figures are “out of control” fails to acknowledge there indeed appears to be some, if limited, control of the situation right now.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team