2012 APD Safety Briefing
July 26,2012
Downtown continues to see a reduction in overall crime. Although greatly reduced, our major concern is larceny from auto, most of which can be attributed to out of town visitors’ leaving high value items in plain view. This is further exacerbated when visitors operate from their vehicle, not wanting to carry items with them either after checking out of a hotel, or attending an event, for example. We will continue to emphasize the Clean Car Campaign principles that discourage leaving items visible inside vehicles.
The small increase in robberies is mostly due to snatch robberies of cell phones, which our surveillance systems have and will continue to aid us in prevention and apprehension. The aggravated assaults we cannot necessarily prevent, but almost all incidents were solved.
Burglary and Auto Theft are down, as we continue our mitigation programs to address these offenses.
As has been addressed in the past, Downtown currently represents only 6% of the City’s crime, while representing almost half of the City’s population. Yet Zone 5 (including Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, and portions of Southwest Atlanta) was responsible for over 30% of the City’s arrests last year. For the same period this year-to-date, Zone 5 arrests represent 24% of the City’s arrests, even with Zone 5 being reduced by the Auburn District and the Old Fourth Ward with this year’s Beat Realignment.
Downtown has been very fortunate that it has very little stranger-on-stranger violent crime, with Larceny accounting for 75% of all Downtown crime. Our biggest challenge is addressing repeat offenders in Zone 5, and there are a number of initiatives ongoing to address this. Zone 5’s proactive policing has paid significant dividends in decreasing crime and showing a stronger police presence. There are numerous ongoing initiatives to maximize resources, particularly partnerships in surveillance resources, panhandling suppression, Clean Car Campaign, and special enforcement team deployments.