by Carolyn Seitz
Public Safety Volunteer
Shown below are two pages of crime stats provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The first page shows you how crime stats for Altadena measure against all of the other service areas for the Sheriff's Department, and the second page shows you a breakdown of Part I crimes for Altadena.
As most of you know from having seen these statistics monthly for the last couple of years, these stats compare crimes for 2012, year to date, stats from last year during the same period of time and also for 2007 so you can see how crime rates compare year to year over a 5 year period for all Part I crimes.
You may review the entire 119 page report here: http://file.lacounty.gov/lasd/cms1_148405.pdf
There are some things to note. Homicide rates have decreased county-wide, but despite a drop in overall crime over the last 5 years, for the first two months of 2012, serious property crimes increased by almost 11% county-wide. These property crimes include burglary, larceny/theft and grand theft auto.
For Altadena specifically, violent crime has decreased by 54.5% over the last 5 years, but because of the increase in rapes or attempted rate reported January and February, our violent crime stats show a 20.1% increase. Of the 3 rapes reported, one was an attempt by a stranger and the other two were committed by persons known to the victims.
Unfortunately, Altadena had 3 rapes reported in the first two months of 2012, all were committed by persons known to the victims.
The other major spike in crime is Grand Theft Auto. Ten vehicles were reported stolen in Altadena in the first two months of 2012. That translates to an increase in Grand Theft Auto of 66.9% over the first two months of 2011. Overall, reports of Grand Theft Auto have decreased by 55.4% over the last 5 years.
Over a five year period, Part I crimes have decreased by 23.2% in Altadena. Violent Crimes have decreased by 54.5% over these 5 years and Property Crimes have decreased by 8.3%.
For the first two months of 2012, Violent Crimes have increased by 20.1% because of the increase in rapes, and Property Crimes have increased by 8.5% because of the spike in Grand Theft Auto.
The Altadena Station deputies and detectives have had good success at catching burglars in the act because of the efforts of vigilant neighbors who made quick decisions to call the Sheriff's Station when they saw unusual, suspicious, odd or out of the ordinary behavior, and unrecognized vehicles parked in odd places. Please continue to make those calls. They're helping put criminals in jail.
We also need help as we continue to experience unnecessarily high rates of theft from vehicles. Please remove all valuables from your vehicles. Don't leave your wallet, cash, purse, big gulp cups full of coins, cameras, laptops, GPS devices, cell phones, iPods or other MP3 devices, sitting on the seat of your vehicles. If you're going to leave them sitting on the seat wherever you park your car, then just leave the door standing open. At least you won't have to go through the inconvenience of having your windows replaced.
Don't be a victim of crime, especially if you've set yourself up to be a victim. Please don't think yourself immune from it.
>As always, stay safe!!
