Category Archives: Crime

Last week, GM explored the third quarter crime numbers and concluded that crime was up this summer. Reader KPE helpfully pointed out that GM was comparing the crime numbers from the third quarter only to the second quarter. Doesn’t crime always tick up during the summer and would this not explain the increase for this year?

Fair enough, so GM went back and recrunched the numbers comparing this past quarter to the third quarters from the prior four years, and the conclusion hasn’t changed: this was a bad summer for crime in Georgetown.

(And before you ask, yes GM is looking at the third quarter, not the “summer.” To the extent that some theories over increases in summer crime depend on the school schedule, looking strictly at quarters might not be the best approach, since it misses late June, when students get out, and captures September when they’re back in session. However, looking at quarters the best way to look at apples to apples, so that’s what GM will stick with for now).

As you can see in the chart above, crime was up in Georgetown this summer compared with the previous four summers. If you’re not a visual learner, here are the numbers:

• 2006 – 215
• 2007 – 245
• 2008 – 230
• 2009 – 235
• 2010 – 262

And in most of the categories, Georgetown recorded the highest or nearly highest numbers this summer.

These include robbery:

Continue reading →

Yesterday GM took a look at the summer real estate numbers and concluded that not much changed from the spring. Today he turns to the crime numbers, and unfortunately the news is not the same. The crime numbers are up overall, although not necessarily where you’d think.

This summer there were 262 crimes reported to MPD. In the spring that number was 230. That’s a 14% jump. Not good. Continue reading →

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Crime in Georgetown continued to stay low for the second quarter of this year versus last year, although it was up significantly from the first quarter’s sharp decline.

The total number of crime incidents for the second quarter was 229, down just 3.38% from last year’s second quarter total of 237. The 229 total was up sharply against the first quarter’s total of 171, but that quarter was unusually quiet, most likely a result of the snow storms. As you can see from the chart of total crime incidences over the past 10 quarters, this last quarter was part of a long term gradual decline:

Continue reading →

Reader Michael Kessler sent in the above photo. Apparently thieves targeted an Escalade on O St. for its rims. The thieves jacked the car up, shoved cinder blocks under the hub and took the wheels right off.

According to Michael “The police said it’s been happening all week, but first one in this area. Continue reading →

With the unfortunate exception of stubbornly persistent robberies, overall crime was way down for Georgetown during the first quarter of 2010. The largest declines came from theft from autos.

GM guesses that the largest single factor for the reduction was the historic snow fall in February. Too bad we can’t have one of those storms every quarter.

Here’s the break-down:

_________1Q 2010                 1Q 2009__%Change
Total________172                             220                   -21.82
Theft ________103                             122                   -15.57
Burglary ______17                                22                      -22.73
Robberies _____12                                11                        9.09
Theft F/ Auto __25                               48                       -47.92(!)
ADW _________9                                  8                          12.50
Stolen Auto ____5                                  9                          -44.44
Sexual Abuse ___1                                  0                          N/A Continue reading →

With the end of 2009, GM can now look back and take a look at the complete year crime statistics. While we did not experience quite the overall crime drop that the rest of the city experienced, we nonetheless shaved stats off of just about every category.

Here is how 2009 stacked up against 2008:

Overall, crime stayed about level from 2008 to 2009. It ticked down a mere 3.68%. If you were to disregard the thefts (most of which are shop-lifting and thus do not directly affect residents) the numbers are even more level, with a slight 1.62% increase from 2008 to 2009. Continue reading →

Wednesday night local Fox news anchor Will Thomas was mugged at gunpoint at Wisconsin and N. Thomas gave up his wallet and was physically unharmed by the assailant.

Within a day of this unfortunate event, GM penned a rebuttal to Harry Jaffe’s missive on the supposed increase in assaults with a deadly weapon across the Second Police District. But what about muggings? Is Thomas’ mugging part of a spike?

No.

As of this time last year Georgetown had experienced 39 robberies. This year that number is 37. In fact, if we keep at this pace, Georgetown will experience the fewest muggings in over four years:

Continue reading →