No they are higher than theyve been in like 30 years (since mid 90s). And they have been trending up for like 10 years, not just pandemic thing.
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/31062/us-homicide-rate/
What you say is technically true but also highly misleading. You're cherry-picking points to put together a narrative that is not the obvious shape of the data.
Peak homicides over the past 10 years are nowhere near the peak in the 90's.
And they trended downward in 2022, and mid-year 2023 estimates were downwards another 9.4% relative to 2022:
Pretty clearly the inflection is at 2020. It was flat before that, so sure, you can draw a "trend" upwards since the lowest point in 2014 or so, but that's just playing games with curve fitting. I can equally tell you, with the same kind of support, that clearly the trend is downward from 1991 to today. "Just look at the numbers!"
And more importantly, the rapid rise in 2020-21 is dropping rapidly now.
And regardless, the fact that the first derivative is negative clearly makes "crime is going up" a lie. Crime is going DOWN right now, as measured. You need to be more specific: "Crime over the past 9 years is going up" would be true (but again, not if you replace 9 with 2 or 30!).