RECENT COMMENTS
Richmond drops to #49!
The Congressional Quarterly Press lists Richmond as the ninth most dangerous city. But that Richmond is in California. Richmond, Va., now ranks 49th among the country’s most dangerous cities, down from its number 29 spot in 2006 and its number 15 spot in 2005. The city previously was among the top 10 in 2003 and 2004, with ninth- and fifth-place rankings, respectively.
“It’s a credit to the men and women of the Richmond Police Department and the citizens of this community,” said Chief Bryan T. Norwood. “Working together in crime prevention and reduction, through a strong community policing base, made this ranking possible.”
The city’s current ranking is based on 2007 data. That data includes 385 cities with populations of 75,000 or more and is based on reported crime rates per 100,000 in six crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft.
For 2008, Richmond continues to record a decline in each of these crime categories:
Murder down 33 percent
Rape down 11 percent
Commercial robbery down 48 percent
Individual robbery down 16 percent
Aggravated assault down 8 percent
Burglary down 3 percent, and
Motor vehicle theft down 23 percent
Chief Norwood attributes the decline in ranking to the community and professional partnerships established by the Department and its officers. Close work with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office – with community prosecutors assigned to each sector – and the Cooperative Violence Reduction Partnership, which includes local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, all lead toward the goal of crime reduction.
The Department’s own Fugitive and Firearms Initiative, Gang Reduction and Intervention Program, and truancy reduction efforts also greatly contribute to addressing the underlying factors that lead to persons committing criminal acts.
“I’m proud to say it looks like we’re on track to continue to drop in the Congressional Quarterly ranking and no longer have the dubious distinction of one of the “most dangerous” cities,” said Chief Norwood. “We hope it soon becomes a misnomer.”
TAGGED: crime
Notice how the ranking dropped during Rodney Monroe’s time as police chief? Well that’s probably because it was his policy for officers to charge criminals with lesser offenses in order to make violent crime stats look lower and make himself look better. I have several friends in the RPD and they have all told me that this was going on. For example, crimes that would normally carry a charge of aggravated assault were reduced to simple assault. I’m not saying crime has not reduced in the city, it probably has. But please take the reported reductions with a grain of salt.
The murder rate has dropped and this is not a result of writing up “lesser charges”. So, take the above comment also with a grain of salt.
Last year though 11/25, the city as a whole had seen 47 homicides. At 25, this year we’ve had just over half of that. At this time last year, the 1st Precinct had seen 11 homicides, compared to 13 so far this year (though it has certainly slowed since the first 3 months of the year…).
According to the RPD’s police incident report, here are the 1st Precinct homicides this year:
2008-01-11
JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE
701 N 32ND ST
2008-01-25
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2208 HILDRETH ST
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2008-01-30
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
300 N 25TH ST
2008-02-04
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2519 FORD AVE
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2008-02-11
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
1900 R ST
2008-03-15
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2101 N 21ST ST
2008-03-18
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2387 AMBROSE ST
2008-04-02
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
1623 SPOTSYLVANIA ST
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2008-06-11
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2200 FAIRFIELD AVE
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2008-07-24
MURDER/NON-NEGLIGENT MANSLAUGHTER
2230 CREIGHTON ROAD
Here are some other comparisons 1/1-11/25 for 2007 and 2008:
OFFENSE – 2007 – 2008
———————-
HOMICIDE – 11 – 13
SEX OFFENSE – 38 – 31
ROBBERY – 176 – 80
ASSAULT – 1288 – 881
BURGLARY 340 – 207
VICE – 831 – 752
THEFT – 987 – 575
VEH_THEFT – 197 – 141
OTHER – 582 – 3711
CT, as a wife of an RPD police officer, I am not taking your comment seriously at all…
Im glad to hear that the rate keeps going down. I also think Richmond gets a bad wrap because we separate statistics of “city” and “counties,” whereas most states combine the two, giving the impression that there is less crime per-capita. In other words, if we took the crime stats from richmond its suburbs, we would be way down.
By the way, the murder on 300 N. 25th street (25th and broad), what happened there? I live like a block away from that. Does anyone have any details on that crime? Thanks a lot!
Here you go: The incident and the arrest 3 weeks later.