Crime View For January 2009

Synopsis of briefing held February 18, 2009 covering the prior month, January, crime activity.

Calls for service saw an increase of night shift calls. This is not typical as higher number daytime calls are usual. The monthly total was 1,260. The night shift saw almost 200 more calls than day shift.

Traffic Collisions were down in January as compared to December by 7 less. The year percentage change was down -41%.
Traffic Fatalities were at zero for December of 2008 and January 2009.
Personal Injury Collisions, were 10 in January but, lower by 10% when compared to December.
Property Damage Collisions totaled 19 in January and less by 8 compared to December.
Non-injury Collisions are still a problem in the south west part of the city.
Motorist Passenger Injuries were 10 in January, two less than December.
Pedestrian Injuries, only 1 while in December there were 2.
Bicyclist Injuries none in December and only one in January. (In October we measured 4 injuries, a spike in the statistical pattern).
Hit and Run Collisions have decreased from December which saw 11 to 9 in January. One officer, at the briefing, thought this was due to the use of impounds of vehicles found without insurance and the driver not having a valid drivers license. The same officer said that, in the past months, he expected 15 a month so this is a definite improvement.
Driving Under the Influence Collisions (DUI) dropped from 5 in December to one in January!
Driving Under the Influence Arrests also dropped from 19 in December to 12 in January.
Have Been Drinking (HBD) collisions were zero for both December and January.

Note: The primary factors for vehicular collisions was in order of importance, fail to yield, speeding and turning.

Crimes Against Persons

Homicide: December of 2008 and January 2009, none.
Rape: None in January 2009.
Robbery: 3 recorded but one might have been cleared resulting in 2. Looking at the time of week it is most striking to see only Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday having this type of crime.
Aggravated assault went way up in January 2009 from 4 in December to 7. Some of this was due to gang activity. The majority of assaults took place Saturday between 4 pm to 8 pm.
Non-aggravated assault was up by one from December to 16. 10 of the assaults for January were domestic violence while 6 were gang related.

Property Crimes

Residential Burglary more than doubled from last year with a total for January of 7. Statistics show that Thursdays between the hours of 8 pm and midnight shows the highest reports. This just might mean that when people come home from work that this crime is detected and that the actual burglary probably took place in the afternoon.
Commercial Burglary dropped by half when compared to the same month last year. The total for this January was 5. Most commercial burglaries took place Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday between noon and 5 am.
Vehicle Burglary dropped by one compared to the same month last year. Total for January 2009 was 15. One officer attending the Crime View briefing asked Neighborhood Watch to help get out the word. This crime can be prevented if you take simple steps like hide valuables and lock your car door. A new trend is the stealing of GPS units from cars. Another detectable pattern showed that this type of crime took place Saturdays between 4 pm and midnight. The map for vehicular burglary shows cluster of these break-ins taking place just north of Orangethorpe Ave, east and west of Rose and Richfield and south of Alta Vista St.
Grand Theft total for January was 13. Map view for this crime shows two bands across the city east and west direction. The first band was on Yorba Linda Blvd with 2 reports. The second band of 3 reports were along Chapman near Kreamer Blvd. The rest were random across the city. This number increased by one from January of last year. Grand thefts most frequently occurred on Friday and Saturday between 8 am and noon. Most of these were thefts of opportunity. Close and lock your garage doors; lock your home doors; lock your car.
Petty Theft jumped by 67% from January of last year. Map patterns show this occurred all over the city - no detectable pattern when looking at the crime view map. The time and day pattern shows Mondays from 8 am to noon and 8 pm and midnight had the highest hits.
Vehicle Theft was down 25% from the same month last year. The most thefts took place Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. There was no specific time of the day. The crime view map showed a definite pattern. The south west corner of the city showed the most stolen and recovered vehicles with 5 total. The Atwood area had 3 total for January. Seven more vehicles were reported around the city.