Douglas Athas, Mayor-Elect

Our crime stats for the last six months have been a roller coaster ride, up one month and down the next. January was a down month overall. Home burglaries matched November but both months represent the lowest reports in a year and a half. Building burglaries weren't as bad as some recent months but still higher than we usually see.
 
The category taking a jump this month were vehicle burglaries. We would have to go back to June to find a worse month. Catching the thieves is always a challenge. Fortunately they usually keep going until they are caught but that doesn't give much satisfaction to the victims. For thefts, incidents were down considerably and as most were shoplifting arrests, so more thieves were caught.
 
One District 1 neighborhood took a proactive stance against crime and it has paid off. They have a crime watch and have also installed high-quality security cameras and a recorder. Not too long ago a thief broke into three cars in the night. He took several items, including a wallet with credit cards. As he left the neighborhood his license plate was recorded. Not much later cameras at WalMart recorded him using the credit card. The investigating detective identified the man—who had been recently released from prison—as someone that had been arrested a couple weeks earlier for burglary. Police staked out the house where he was living and stopped him when he drove away in the truck photographed in the neighborhood. Several of the stolen items were still in the truck. He was arrested and taken to jail.
 
We don't have to be victims and there is a lot that we can do to help the police. After all, the more we help them, the more they are able to help us and our community.
 
If you want to review the areas that have reported incidents over the last month, download the complete report here for address-by-address information that includes your neighborhood. If you are reading this but do not live in District 1, you can get reports for your area here on the Police Department's website.