By Allen Payton, Publisher

The City Council and community were given some good news at the September 13 council meeting when Chief of Police Allan Cantando announced violent crime is down by 19.7% for the first six months of this year, compared to last year.

In spite of a 30% vacancy in sworn police officer positions, murders, rapes, assaults and robberies, known as Part 1 crimes, were all down when compared to the first six months of 2010.

In his report to the council, Cantando shared that there was a 12.6% decline in total arrests from 2,797 to 2,444.

The only part-one crime to increase was burglary, which Cantando attributed to youths out of school for summer break. That figure drops when they return to school.

Cantando also praised the Volunteers In Public Safety (VIPS) for contributing almost 3,700 volunteer hours, helping save the department $86,000.
Council members thanked the Chief and the police department for their good work in the face of limited resources.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 1:21 pm and is filed under News, Police & Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.