SAN DIEGO
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The city's crime rate for the first nine months of this year dropped nearly 8 percent overall compared with the same time period last year, but homicides, rapes and gang-related crimes were up.
Homicides have risen nearly 10 percent – 45 compared with 41 at this time last year. The number of reported rapes has risen 34 percent to 278, from 207 last year.
Decreases were seen in robberies, assaults, domestic violence and hate crimes.
Announcing the numbers yesterday at police headquarters downtown, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders called them “encouraging.”
“Crime (overall) is at the lowest it's been in more that 40 years, with fewer than 35 crimes per 1,000 residents,” Sanders said. “This is the first time since 1966 that we've dipped below that 35 crime mark on the crime index.”
San Diego crime
January through September
34.9: crimes per 1,000 residents in 2008
37.9: crimes per 1,000 residents in 2007
4,556: violent crimes in 2008
4,722: violent crimes in 2007
SOURCE: City of San Diego
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The crime index encompasses violent crimes (homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) and property crimes (burglaries, theft and auto theft).
Police Chief William Lansdowne called the rise in rapes “a real problem area” and said the attacks almost always involve alcohol and people who know each other.
Gang-related crimes – such as vandalism, tagging, thefts and drugs – increased by 8 percent. Shootings and stabbings decreased.
Lansdowne said that officers are responding to more gang-related calls and reporting them more efficiently, but that the problem is transitory. Once officers are dispersed to an area, the problem moves to another, he said.
“We are constantly following the problem,” he said. “The solution, I believe, is really in the schools.”
Lansdowne said that overall, he believes the city is doing very well in terms of safety.
“San Diego continues to be one of the safest large cities in America because of the exceptional work the officers do,” Lansdowne said.
Debbi Baker: (619) 293-1710; debbi.baker@uniontrib.com
