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The city’s overall violent crime rate dropped to its lowest point in 10 years in 2012, although the rate of confirmed shootings was twice as high as it had been two years ago.

Police Chief Mark Kinmon [pictured above, right, at a prior council meeting] shared these statistics and more in his annual public safety update at the Feb. 6 council meeting.

In 2011, reported violent crime incidents totalled 260, Kinmon said. In 2012, that number was lowered to 247. Violent crime includes murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Despite this overall decrease, the number of confirmed shootings recently doubled, going from 26 in 2010 to 52 in 2011. In 2012, 53 shootings were confirmed.

There were 43 shootings confirmed in 2006; 56 in 2007; 16 in 2008; and 29 in 2009, according to the chief’s presentation.

“This is a problem for us,” Kinmon said. “We have a gang problem. We have a gun violence problem. We’re doing everything we can to address it.”

Although gangs are responsible for much of the city’s violence, some shootings occur between family members or friends, Kinmon said.

“It’s more personal, we’re finding out,” he said. “Some of the people who are shooting each other are related.”

One major hurdle for the police department is victims’ refusal to speak out about the circumstances of the shootings, Kinmon said.

Kinmon presented police department statistics over a period of 10 years, from 2002 to 2012. There were increases in some areas and decreases in others.

For example, there was a big drop in juvenile arrests. In 2005, the department saw a total of 545 juvenile arrests. After years of decrease, in 2012, there were only 89 juvenile arrests in the city, Kinmon said.

Two groups of repeat juvenile offenders turned 18 in 2006 and 2007, which helped decrease the juvenile arrest rate.

“What that’s telling us is, yeah, these kids were arrested a lot,” Kinmon said. “They were a problem. They’re still having problems. But guess what? Those kids coming up behind them, you’re not seeing them having those police contacts. They’re involved with other programs.”

When asked whether the decrease could be attributed to a lower juvenile population in the city, Kinmon said the city was looking at that as a possibility, but he doubted that was the cause of the drop.

The city did see some increases in crime statistics, including motor vehicle summonses, which reached 24,547 in 2012 — “the most, probably ever, in the department,” Kinmon said. “Certainly the most since 2002.”

This was made up of 19,000 parking violations and 5,000 moving violations, Kinmon said.

Property crime also decreased in 2012, Kinmon said. There was a major increase in burglary and theft incidents in 2008, he said. In 2011, the rate topped off at 412 per year. Last year, that been almost cut in half to 225.

The department seized more than $69,000 in cash from illegal activities in 2012, Kinmon said. In 2009, they seized $85,000.

That money is used for training and equipment. Police cars have even been purchased with seized money, Kinmon said. Some of the proceeds are also funnelled to the Prosecutor’s Office.

The department also seizes many guns each year. The department took 79 guns off the streets in 2012, including a semi-automatic rifle [pictured above], and the number of guns seized has steadily increased since the department began to keep track, Kinmon said.

Narcotics complaints have seen a net decrease over the past five years, Kinmon said. In 2005, the department received 1,115 complaints. Last year, they received 240 complaints.

 

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