Antioch Police Chief says violent crime down 20%, calls for service up in first annual report
Sworn staffing still in the mid-90’s
By Allen Payton
During the March 13 Antioch City Council meeting, Police Chief Tammany Brooks gave his first annual report since assuming his position, last year. He offered some good news and some bad news. The good news is from 2016 to 2017 violent crime in Antioch is down 20.1%. However, since most crimes are property crimes, and they were up 4%, overall Part I crimes were about the same having decreased only 0.1%, plateauing after a three-year decrease.
Larceny
Auto theft increased 24% from 862 incidents in 2016 to 1,072 incidents in 2017. But APD was able to recover 96% of the stolen vehicles in 2016 and 94.5% in 2017. Shoplifting dropped by 10%, but Other Larceny increased 23% from 460 incidents in 2016 to 565 in 2017 for total increase in larceny of 12%.
Burglary
More good news was in the residential burglary category, which continued to decrease from 651 incidents in 2015, to 568 in 2016 and then to 339 in 2017. But, business burglary increased to 250 in 2017 after a decrease of 211 to 194 between 2015 and 2016.
Call For Service & Response Times
Average dispatch call answering times have decreased, so has the time from call received to when the officer arrives on the scene by over a minute between 2016 and 2017. But calls for service for the Community Policing Bureau increased from 87,285 to 89,321, continuing a four-year trend from a base amount of 80,404 in 2014.
Sworn Officer Staffing
The year ended with the department having a total of 94 sworn police officers on the force out of 103 authorized, which is a total of five additional officers from the Measure C half-cent sales tax. (However, the chief’s report states there have been 12 officers added to the force, by continuing to use the council’s alternative figure of 82 officers which were on the force when Measure C passed in November 2013, as the base figure. That’s in spite of the fact 89 sworn officers the department had when the measure was placed on the ballot, and the mayor and council promised the voters an additional 22 officers if Measure C passed). As of the latest new hire in February, there are currently 96 sworn officers on the force. That places Antioch at the lowest level of police officers per 1,000 population of cities of similar size in the county, East and North Bay.
Volunteer Hours & Value
The Volunteers In Police Service (VIPS) provided 9,520.49 hours of community service for a total value of $270,953.15 and 16 Explorers provided over 2,400 hours of volunteer time. The 56 volunteers in Animal Services provided 5,984 hours of service for a value of $170,304.64.
The council members thanked Chief Brooks for his report and the police officers standing in the back of the council chambers for their service, but none of them asked how he planned to hire the additional 15 officers needed to reach the 111 sworn officers promised from Measure C funds.
See the chief’s complete report, here: APD 2017 Annual Report-Final
the attachments to this post:
APD 2017 Annual Report-Final
APD 2017 Annual Report-Final
Sworn Staffing Level Comparisons
APD Part I Crime Stats 2016-17
The devil is in the details. It would be very interesting to disseminate the facts on this statistic analysis.